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The University Memorial 



/ 



THE 



University Memorial 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



OF 



Alumni of the University of Virginia who fell 
IN THE Confederate War 



FIVE volumes in ONE 



BY 



Rev JOHN LIPSCOMB JOHNSON B A 

V 



BALTIMORE 

TURNBULL BROTHERS. 
1871 



V\ • ■ ' si. 



Entered according to Act cf Con3:ress in the year 1S71, 

BY JIsO. LIPSCOMB JOHXSOX, 

In the Office of ttie Librarian of Congress, at WashingtoD. 



//// IMNES.ecCOMPArjY. 



PRIS TEBS 



TO MY ALMA MATER, 



THIS WORK. 



COMMEMORATIVE OF HER FALLEN SONS, 



IS BKSrECTPULLY DEDICATE©. 



/ 



PREFACE. 



No fipology, it is believed, will be required for the publica- 
tion of The University Memorial. The people for whose 
eye it is intended do not believe that the sword is the arbiter of 
right, nor have the}'' ceased to cherish the principles which they 
made so gigantic an effort to maintain. They are not ashamed of 
their kinsmen who fell in the great Confederate struggle, and who, 
sleeping now by mountain and river, in forest and field, in glen 
and dale, have benjucathed to them as a proud heritage the glory 
which their heroism achieved. Though poor and oppressed, the 
Southern people still have — if only this — a wealth of affection 
to lavish upon their dead ; too poor to raise but here and there 
the costly marble shaft, they are yet rich in the highest and holiest 
offerings of the heart. They give honor themselves; they would 
that all might give it. AVhen in the soft days of sjn-ing they go, 
men, matrons, maidens and trooping children, witli garlands for 
their graves, they greet with hearty God-speed him who can bring 
but a single blossom : even thus will they welcome this offering to 
their memory — this wreath of cypress and laurel and oak, fash- 
ioned by many hands for the brow of the grand Old Mother that 
sits mourning for her martyred children. 

Some words of explanation, however, may not be out of place 
here. The preparation of this work was suggested to me during 
the recent war, by the death, in rapid succession, of so many young 
men whose fiicmiship 1 had enjoyed when a student at college; 



8 PREFACE. 

but the pressure of professional duties gave me no opportunity to 
undertake it until about two years ago, when, with the prospect 
of a season of comparative leisure, and encouraged by some of the 
warmest friends of the University, I began to collect the necessary 
facts, with the view to binding together the names of all the 
Alumni of that institution who fell in defence of the South. Even 
then I was painfully aware that the task I assumed was a difficult 
and delicate one : the material was to be gathered from every 
quarter of what was once the Confederacy, and I felt that when 
this was collected, I should, in digesting and arranging it, be 
handling as it were the very ashes of the dead, and meddling with 
memories so sacred that not to touch them reverently and lovingly 
would be to profane them. Far beyond my expectation it has 
proved difficult and laborious; and, but for the encouragement 
and cordial cooperation of those to whom the work especially 
appealed for sympathy, it might have been abandoned. For two 
years all the leisure consistent with the proper discharge of other 
obligations has been industriously devoted to it; and, after all, the 
catalogue of names, though grown to more than twice the antici- 
pated length, is probably incomplete. 

No improper feeling will be attributed to me for limiting my 
work to a single class of men. I could prepare but one chapter 
for the great record-book of the Southern dead, and it was natural 
enough that I should turn to those to whom I was most closely 
bound by the bright memories of my youth. Other classes were 
not less distinguished for gallantry, not less devoted to duty; and 
if for the alumni of every institution of learning in the South 
some should be found to undertake what I have attempted for 
those of the University, they will receive warmer encouragement 
from none than from myself. Indeed, in this event they would 
find that in doing my own work I have incidentally and in part 
performed theirs too ; for many of the University men were alumni 
of other institutions as well. 

In the pre]3aration of memoirs, my highest aim has been to 
secure fidelity in the life-record, and accuracy in the delineation 



PREFACE. 9 

of character. To this end I have sought the aid, whenever it was 
possible, of those who were able not merely to state the bare, 
skeleton facts of a life, but, from intimate personal acquaintance, 
to give those delicate touches and subtle shades of character which 
make the man to stand out instinct with personality. How fortu- 
nate I have been in securing such aid will be seen by a glance at 
the Index, which is studded with the names of those who responded 
to my appeals. To all these I record here my grateful acknow- 
ledgment for their graceful contributions. Their articles, not less 
than their names, are a warrant that the MEMOiii/VL will not fail 
to meet approval. Some memoirs I have marked anonymous 
either because the writers wish it so, or because they are not dis- 
tinctly enough the product of any one pen to justify other credit. 

It will be noticed that the articles vary much in length, and 
some may be disposed to censure me on this account. To these it 
will be needful only to state that it was never intended to measure 
merit by the amount of matter in a memoir. As was anticipated 
from the beginning, there was in some cases a lack of material, 
in others an abundance; and to this fact the inequality of leno-th 
is due. In some instances the want of material is to be traced to 
those who alone were able to furnish it; in others, life had been 
too short to give more than tlie promise of excellence, or to justify 
more than a brief notice. "Causa drfficilis laudare puerum ; non 
enim res laudanda, sed sj^es cstJ' 

Some attention has been given to the subject of genealogy, under 
the belief that this feature of the book would be valued by those 
who do not sympathize with the convulsion;^ of society consequent 
u{)on the disastrous termination of the war. In this connection 
Bishop Meade's Old Churches and Families of Virginia has been 
of invaluable service. In the frequent use that has been made 
of this work, tiie proper credit may not always have been given. 

In the matter of arrangement, it seemed to me to bo desirable 
to follow out a plan by which, while each article should be of spe- 
cial interest to some family, the whole scries might be a contribu- 
tion to history. Accordingly, the memoirs appear in their 



10 PREFACE, 

chronological order, so as to present the great events of the war 
in their proper succession. Of course these leading events are 
referred to in more than a single article ; but the reference being 
in most cases to different companies, regiments, or brigades, 
moving simultaneously to battle, the record of the Southern forces 
is thus made only the more minute. And it may be added that 
the statements here made of military movements are based not 
simply upon the histories that have appeared, but in the main 
upon the authority of those wlio tookpart in the actions described. 
Tliis is particularly true of the minor features of great battles — 
a fact which may not be without interest to the future historian. 

The work thus perpared and arranged, contains the names of 
nearly two hundred Alumni of tiie University of Virginia ; among 
them representatives of every Southern State, every religious de- 
nomination, every arm of the military service, and every grade 
short of Major-General. No invidious distinction is made among 
these, for they were brethren ; and whether they perished on the 
gallows, in prison, in the hospital, or in the fierce conflict of arms, 
they deserve alike to be remembered. The list comprises not a 
few of those who achieved the highest honors of their Alma 
Mater; twelve Masters of Arts, two Bachelors of Arts, nine 
Bachelors of Law, and two Doctors of Medicine are found in it; 
while the Literary Societies are represented by six Valedictory 
Orators, four Readers, thirteen Presidents, and five Magazine 
Editors. 

With these notes of explanation I conclude my task. If the 
Memorial receive but a tithe of public favor as compared with 
the labor it has cost, I shall be more than gratified. If any 
object that it abounds in eulogy, I re[)ly tiiat the words of strong 
affection or glowing admiration, found here and there, are feeble 
when contrasted with the praise in the simple statements of the 
great deeds of these men. If Cicero, and Pericles, and Robert 
Hall could count the dead a worthy theme for their princely elo- 
quence ; if Collins, Thomson, Dryden, Cowley, Wordsworth, John- 
son, and Tennyson could sing in elegiac strains to the memory of 



PREFACE. 11 

broken friendships : surely we, without fearful heart or faltering 
hand, may write a word, even of praise, for our kinsmen Avho, 
though they died so soon, laid not down their lives before they 
had made them sublime. History v/ill yet inquire for them, and 
the fulness of time will accord them honors which the present 
denies. They were men of whom friends and foes will, ultimately, 
alike be proud. Already in a distant land the prophecy has gone 
forth that their great chieftain, the beloved Loe, will hold a place 
in the heart of the entire American people; and what ever liglit 
shall gather about his name, will radiate theirs also. For them, 
as for him, may the })rophecy be recorded here : " Not yet," 
said The London Weekly Dispatch, in speaking of General Lee, 
irarae<liately after his death, — '^not yet, perhaps, v/ill the bitter 
feelings of the war have sufficiently passed aM'ay to enable his 
countrymen of Pennsylvania, of Massachusetts, to appreciate him 
at his true worth ; but the day will come when the men of the 
trans- Atlantic Republic will recall his name with as much pride 
as we do those of Hampden and of Falkland, without inquiring 
whether they fought for King or for Parliament. Even now it 
will soften the memory of his fame if they recall that in declaring 
against the Federal Government after having held a commission 
in its army he only followed the example of George Washington, 
the friend and fellow-soldier of his grandfather, who in the same 
way disowned his allegiance to King George when he believed 
that his duty to his native land required the sacrifice." 

J. L. Johnson. 

CiiAiiLOTTESYiLLE, Va., February 3d, 1S71. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

ABERCROMBIE, L. B., of Wavcily, Texas 7:5 

ANDERSON, JOSEPH W., B. L., of Botetourt county, Virginia 8S3 

Major and Chief of Artiller}', Stevenson's Division. 

By Major John W. Johnston, of Buchanan, Virginia. 

ARNOLD, A. JAY, of Alexandria, Virginia T.")l 

1st Lieutenant, Company I, 5th Virginia Infantry. 

ASHTON, BURDITT W., of King George county, Virginia 470 

Private, Company C, 9th Virginia Cavalry. 

• 

BARTON, DAVID R., of Wincliester, Virginia 289 

Lieutenant, Cutshaw's Battery. 

By L. M. Blackford, 31. A., cf Virginia. 

BAYLOR, WILLIAM S. H., of Staunton, Virginia 222 

Coloucl, 5th Virginia Infantry, Commanding Stonewall Brigade. 

By Bolivar Curistian, of Staunton, Virginia, 

BEALL, JOHN YATES, of Jefferson county, Virginia 68.1 

Acting Master, Confederate States Navy. 

By Dan. B. Lucas, of Charlestowu, West Virginia. 
13 



14 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

BEDINGER, GEORGE R, of Jeffersou county, Virgiaia 476 

Captain, 33d Virginia Infantry. 

Anonymous. 

BERRY, LAWRENCE L. G., of Charlestown, West Virginia 61 

Private, Company G. 2cl Virginia lufautry, Stonewall Brigatle. 

BIBB, FRENCH S., of Charlottesville, Virginia 339 

Junior 2d Lieutenant, Charlottesville Artillery. 

BISCOE, THOMAS HUNT, of New Orleans, Louisiana 7:3 

Major, 7th Louisiana Infantry. 

BOOTON, WILLIAM S., of Rome, Georgia 474 

Private, 8th Georgia Infantry. 

BOSTON, REUBEN B., of Fluvanna, county, Virginia 740 

Colouel, 5ih Virginia Cavalry. 

By Alphokso A. Geat, of Flnvauna'county, Virginia. 

BRAWNER, WILLIAM G., of Brentsville, Virginia 408 

Captain, Prince William Partisan Kaugers. 

BRECKINRIDGE, PEACHY G., of Botetourt county, Virginia 744 

Acting Captain, Company B, 2d Virginia Cavalry. 

BRECKINRIDGE, JAMES, of Botetourt county, Virginia 744 

Captain, Company C, 2d Virginia Cavalry. 

BROKENBROUGH, AUSTIN, of Tappabannock, Virginia 413 

Captaiu, Company D, 55th Virginia Infantry. 

BRONAUGH, WILLIAM N., M. A,, of Little Rock, Arkansas 158 

Major, 2d Arlcacsas Battalion. 

By John Hart, M. A., of Virginia. 

BROWN, JOHN THOMPSON, of Virginia 560 

Colonel, let Kegiment Virginia Artillery. 

By IIou. B. Johnson Barbour, Rector of the University of Virginia. 

BUIST, Dr. EDWIN S., of Greenville, South Carolina ... 71 

Assistant Surgeon, 9th Soutl\ Carolina Infantry. 

BUTLER, WASHINGTON B., of Orange Mills, Florida 753 

Adjutant, 2d Florida Infantry, 



0ONTE?[TS. 15 

PAGE 

BUTLER, CORNELIUS A., of Fernancliua, Florida 753 

Captain, 2d Florida lufautry. 



CABELL, JOSEPH C, Jr., of Nelson county, Virginia.. 529 

1st Lieuteuaut, Company U, 40ili Virg-iuia Inl'aiit-y. 

CARR, JAMES G., of Albemarle county, Virginia ... G03 

Private, Company K, 2d Virginia Cavalry. 

By Fi:ed. N Flejiing, of Goochland county, Virginia. 

CARR, WILLIAM C, of Fauquier county, Virginia 137 

Lieutenant, Company B, Sth Virginia Infar.try. 

By C. Powell Grady, M. A., of B.iltimore, Maryland. 

CxiRRINGTON, W. C. P., of Saint Louis, Missouri 399 

Capt-iin, Company A. Ist Miesouii Infantry. 

Anonymous, 

CHALMERS, JAMES, of Lynchburg, Virginia G4 

Sergeant, Company B, 2d Virginia Cavalry, 

By Charles M. Blackfoud, B. L., of Lyuchbur^', Virginia. 

CHALMERS, Dii. HENRY C, of Halifax county, Virginia 754 

Sargcon, Confederate States Army. 

CHAPMAN, , of Union, Monroe county, Virginia 75.j 

CLARK, Dr. P. H., of Campbell county, Virginia 199 

Captain, Long Island Artillery. 

COCKE, WM. FAUNTLEROY, of Cumberland county, Virginia 445 

Lieutenant, Company E, IStli Virginia Infantry. 

By Mrs. Makgaket J. Prestov, of Lexington, Virginia. 

COCKE, Dr. WM. HENRY, of Portsmouth, Virginia 712 

Assistant Surgeon, 14th Virginia Infantry. 

Anonymcug. 

COHE^^, GRATZ, of Savannah, Georgia 704 

Volunteer Aide to Acting Brigadier-General G. P. UarriGon, 

Anonymous. 

COLEMAN, THOMAS G.,' Jr., of Halifax county, Virginia 226 

Junior 2d Lieuteuaut aud Actiug Captain, Company K, 3d Virginia Infantry. 

COLEMAN, Professor L. M, University of Virginia 301 

Lieutenant Colonel, Ist Regiment Virginia Artillery. 

By Professor Cuaklks Mokkis, M. A., University of Geor"-ia. 



16 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

COLEMAN, CHARLES L., of Madison Parish, Louisiana 593 

Captain, Morris Artillery. \ 

CONRAD, HOLMES A., of Martinsburg, Virginia 31 

Sergeant, 2d Virginia Infantry, StoncwaU Brigade. 

By Rev. KiNLOcu Nelson, of Fauquier county, Virginia. 

CONRAD, H. TUCKER, of Martiusburg, Virginia CI 

Private, 2d Virginia Infantry. Stonc^va^. Brigade. 

By Kev. Kinlocu Nelson, of Fauquier couuty, Virginia. 

CORBIN, RICHARD, of Caroline county, Virginia 4S3 

Private, Company B, 9tli Virginia Cavalry. 

COWHERD, CHARLES S., of Orange county, Virginia 78 

Private, Gordousville Grays, 13th Virginia Infantry. 

By Rev. L. J. IIa.let, of Louisa Couuty, Virginia. 

COWIN, Dr. JOHN H., of Alabama..... 381 

Orderly Sergeant, Company D, 5th Alabama Infantry. 

COX, JOSEPH E., M. A., of Chesterfield county, Virginia 73 

Lieutenant, Manchester Artillery. 



DAVIDSON, GREENLEE, of Lexington, Virginia 360 

Captain, Letcher Artillery. 

By Colonel James W. Massie, Virginia Military Institute. 

DAVIDSON, FREDERICK, of Lexington, Virginia 754 

Sergeant, Company 11, 4th Virginia Infantry. 

DAVIDSON, ALBERT, of Lexington, Virginia 754 

1st Lieutenant, Adjutant-Gcucrars Department. 

DAVIS, ROBERT BEALE, of Westmoreland couuty, Virginia G70 

Captain, Company K, Commanding 40th Virginia Infantry. 

DREWRY, JAMES H., of Southampton county, Virginia Cll 

Private, Company A, 13th Virginia Cavalry. 



EASTON, EDWIN W., of Mobile, Alabama 189 

Private, Mobile Cadets, Gd Alabama Infantry. 

Anonvmous. 



■CONTENTS. 17 

PAGE 

ELLIOTT, PEPtCIVAL, of Savannah, Georgia 735 

Private, Savannah Volunteers. 

By Dr. J. B. Elliott, of Tennessee. 

ELLIOTT, RALPH, of Beaufort, South Carolina 755 



FAIRFAX, P.A:n'DOLPH, of Alexandria, Virginia 298 

Trivate, Kockbridge Artillery. 

By L. M. Blackford, M. A., of A'irginia. 

FARLEY, WILLIAM D., of Laurensville, South Carolina 754 

Capta'.n, on G cneral J. E. B. Stuart's Staff. 

FIELD, WILLIAM G., of Culpeper county, Virginia 753 

Lieutenant and Staff-Officer. 

FONTAINE, EDMUND, Jr., of Hanover county, Virginia 3S 

Sergeant- 2Major, 4th Yirginl.a Cavalry, 

FRENCH, JUNIUS B., of Charlotte, North Carolina 485 

Adjutant, 23d North Carolina Infantry. 

FARLEY, WILLIAM D., of Laurensville, S. C 754 



GARLAND, SAMUEL, Jr., B. L., of Lynchbu rg, Virginia 263 

Brigadier-General, D. 11. Iliirs Division. 

By K. G. H. KsAX, 3il. A., B.L., of Lynchburg, Virginia. 

GARLAND, HUGH A., of Saint Louis, Missouri 678 

Colonel, Ist Missouri Infantry. 

By K. G. n. Kbax, il. A., B. L., of Lynchburg, Virginia. 

GARLINGTON, BENJAMIN C, of South Carolina 172 

Lieutenant-Colonel, 3d South Carolina Infantry. 

Anonymous. 

GOGGIN, WILLIAM L., Jr., of Lynchburg, Virginia 54 

1st Lieutenant, 11th Virginia Infantry. 

GORDON, GEORGE, of Fredericksburg, Virginia 755 

GORDON, GEORGE L., of Albemarle county, Virginia 753 

GREEN, ROBERT HALL, of Fau(iuier county, Virginia 755 

GROGAN, KENNEDY, of Maryland 755 

2 



18 CONTEITTS. 

PAGE 

GUIGER, GEORGE H,, of Albemarle county, Virginia 435 

Captain, and Aide to General Kemper. 



HAMLIN, WM. BOSWELL, of Petersburg, Yir-liila 755 

IIAMNER, N. B., IJuiversity of Virginia 275 

Private, Company B, 19Lh Virginia Infantry. 

HARMANSON, JAMES R., of aSTortbampton county, Virginia 13:1 

1st Lieutenant, Company F, 4tli Virginia Battalion. 

By Colonel B. T. Gukteu, of Accomac county, Virginia. 

HARRISON, Ret. DABNEY CARR, of Hanover county, Virginia 83 

Captain, Companj- K, 5G;h Virginia Infantry. 

By Kev. Moses D. IIoge, D.D., of Kiclimoud, Virginia 

HARRISON, BENJAMIN IL, of Upper Brandon, Virginia 136 

Captain, Charles City Cavalry. 

Anonymous. 

HASKELL, WILLIA]\I T., of Abbeville District, Soutli Carolina 450 

Captain, Company A, Ist South Carolina Volunteers. 

By Rev. William P. DuBose, M. A., of South Carolina. 

HEALY, ELLIOTT M., of Middlesex county, Virginia 23G 

Captain, Company C, 55th Virginia Infantry. 

Anonymous. 

HENDERSON, LEONARD A., of Salisbury, North Carolina GOS 

Captain, Company F, 8th North Carolina State Troops. 

Anonymous. 

HOBBS, THOMAS H., B. L., of Iluntsville, Alabama 754 

HOLLADAY, JAMES M., of Albemarle county, Virginia.... 249 

Private, Company B, lOlh Virginia Infantry. 

Anonymous. 

HULL, JOHN MONCURE, of Falmouth, Virginia 254 

Private, Company B, 0th Virginia Cavalry. 

HUNTER, BEVERLY BAKER, M. D., of Isle of Wight county ,Virginia. 633 

Captain, Company K, 41st Virginia Infantry. 

HUTTON, WILLIAM B., of Gainesville, Alabama = 377 

Lieutenant, Company A, 5th Alabama Battalion. 



COKTE]^TS. 19 

PAGE 

IRVING, JOSEPH K., of San Francisco, California 755 



JENKINS, JOHN SUMMERPIELD, of Portsmouth, Yirginia 753 

Adjutaut, Uth Virginia Infantry, Armistead's Brigade. 

JENKINS, MELZAR A., of Virginia 175 

2d Sergeant, Company D, 3d Virginia Infantry. 

JONES, EGBERT J., of Atliens, Alabama 751 

Colonel, 4th Alabama Infantry. 

JONES, FRANCIS T., of Georgia 754 

Adjutant, — Cavalry, Hampton's Brigade. 

JONES, JOHN T., of Carrolton, Alabama , 1G3 

Private, 5th Alabama Infantry. 

By Colonel L. M. Stone, and Kev. J. W. Taylor, of Alabama. 

JONES, F. PENDLETON, of Louisa county, Virginia 431 

Lieutenant on General John M. Jones's Staff. 

Anonymous. 

JONES, THOMAS R., of Charlottesville, Virginia G35 

Captain and Staff-Offlcer, Army of the Mississippi. 

Auonymons. 



KEMPER, GEORGE B., of Rockingham county, Virginia 548 

1st Lieutenant, Company B, 10th Virginia Infantry. 

By Mrs. Mart Pendleton Kempeb, of Louisa county, Virginia. 

KINCHELOE, WM. JAMES, B. L., of Warrenton, Virginia 63G 

1st Lieutenant, Company C, 40th Virginia Infantry. 



LATANE, Dii. WILLIAM, of Essex county, Virginia 141 

Captain, Company F, 0th Virginia Cavalry. 

LATANE, JOHN, of Essex county, Virginia 141 

Junior 1st Lieutcuant, Company F, 0th Virginia Cavalry. 

LATHAM, RICHARD P., M. A , of Warrenton, Virginia 110 

Lieutenant of Engineers. 



20 C ]S'^ T E X T S . 

PAGE 

LEWIS, JOHN, of Kanawha, Virginia 648 

Adjutant, 3(>th Virginia Infantry. 

LEWIS, GEORGE NOLE, of Alabama 752 

LOVE, ROBERT T., of Fairfiix county, Virginia 755 

LINDSAY, JAMES W., of Berry's Ferry, Virginia 755 

LINDSAY, REUBEN, of Albemarle county, Virginia 755 



IMAGRUDER, JOHN B., M.A., of Albemarle county, Virginia.. 753 

Colonel, 57th ^'irginia Infantry, Armistcad's Brigade. 

MAGRUDER, JAMES W., of Fluvanna county, Virginia 591 

1st Lieutenant and Acting Captain, Company K, 2d Virginia Cavalry. 

MAJOR, EDMOND P., of Culpeper county, Virginia 121 

Adjutant, 2Cth Alabama Infautry. 

MARSHALL, THOMAS, of Fauquier county, Virginia , 754 

MASSIE, Professor ROBERT T., of Virginia 417 

Captain of Engineers. 

By Professor S. MAUrix, jSf. A., M. D., University of Virginia. 

MASSIE, JOHN LIVINGSTON, B. L., of Charlottesville, A'irginia 657 

Captain, Fluvanna Artillery. 

By General W. N. Pendleton, of Lexington, Virginia. 

MASTIN, GUSTAVUS B., of Huntsville, Alabama 131 

Captain, Huntsville Guards, 4th Alabama Infantry. 

Anonymous. 

MAUPIN, JAMES R., University of Virginia 404 

Private, 2d Richmond Howitzers. 

By N.II. Massie, of Charlottesville, Virginia. 



MAURY, JOHN II., of Washington, D. C .... 
Lieutenant, and Aide to General D. H. Maury. 



Anonymous. 



McCOY, WM. KENNETH, of the University of Virginia 373 

Sergeant, CharlotteCTille Artillery. 



CONTENTS. 21 

PAGE 

McDowell, THOMAS p., of Texas 217 

Private, 2cl Rqckbridgo Artillery. 

Anonymous. 

McGCHEE, A. JL, of Louisa county, Virginia 755 

McKIM, ROBERT B., of Baltimore, Maiylaucl 751 

Private, Eockbridge Artillery. 

MEADE, IL EVERARD, of Petersburg, Virginia , 196 

Private, Company E, 12tli Virginia Infantry. 

MEAD, WILLIAM Z., ol Halifax county, Virginia 598 

Lieutenant, Battalion of Sharpshooters, Deas' Brigade. 

By William W. Old, M. A., of Norfolk, Virginia. 

MEEM, J. LAWRENCE, of Lynchburg, Virginia 133 

Captain, and A. A. G., Garland's Brigade. 

By Charles L. Mosbt, of Lynchburg, Virginia. 

MEEM, Dr. A. RUSSELL, of Shenandoah county, Virginia 703 

Post-Surgcon, Mount Jackson, Virginia. 

By Mrs. C. J. M. Jordan, of Lynchburg, Virginia. 

MEREDITH, WM. B., M. A., of Richmond, Virginia 219 

Adjutant, Richardson's Battalion of Artillery. 

By Rev. John C. Long, of Charlottesville, Virginia. 

MORRIS, AVILLIAM, of Charlottesville, Virginia 752 

MORRIS, GEORGE W., of Norfolk, Virginia 150 

Private, Hiigcr Artillery. 

MORRIS, JOHN, of Goochland county, Virginia.. 430 

Lieutenant, and Ordnance Officer, Pegram's Artillery. * 

By Hugh R. Pleasants, of Virginia. 

'MORRILL, WILLIAM T., of Alexandria, Virginia 127 

Color-Corporal, 17th Virginia Infantry. 

By Rev. William P. Gardner, of Virginia. 

MOSBY, LESLIE, of Lynchburg, Virginia 487 

Lieutenant, and Aide to General Wharton. 

By Mrs. C. J. M. Jordan, of Lynchburg, Virginia. 

3IUNF0RD, CHARLES ELLIS, of Richmond, Virginia 180 

2d Lieutcnaat, Letcher Artillery. 







C N T E IT T S 



PAGE 

NELSON, HUGH M., M. A., of Clarke county, Virginia 206 

Major, and Aide-de-Camp, General Eweirs Staff. 

Auouymous. 

NELSON, Dr. JOHN A., of Bedford coucly, Virginia 492 

Assistant Surgeon, 2d Virginia Cavalry. 

By Mrs. C. J. M. Jordan, of Lynchburg, Virginia. 

NEWMAN, WILSON S., of Orange county, Virginia G42 

1st Lieutenant, Commaudiug Company A, 13th Virginia Infantry. 

By Rev. Jxo. Wai. Jones, of Lexington, Virginia. I 

NEWTON, Dr. THOMAS, of Norfolk, Virginia 279 

Private, Company E, Cth A'irgiuia Infantry. 

NEWTON, WM. B , of Hanover county, Virginia 490 

Captain, Company G, and Acting Colonel, 4th Virginia Cavalry. 

By W. S. R. BEOKENBROuan, M. D., of Hanover county, Virginia. 



PALMER, JOHN S., of St. Stephen's Parish, South Carolina 630 

Captain, Company K, 10th South Carolina Vo:untccrs. 

PALMER, JAMES J., of St. Stephen's Parish, South Carolina 232 

Private Company K, Jenkins' Regiment Palmetto Sharpshooters. 

By Professor Warken Du Free, "Woiford College, S. C. 

PALMER, STEPHEN D , of St. James' Parish, South Carolina 405 

Private, Company D, 4th South Carolina Cavalry. 

PATE, H. CLAY, of Petersburg, Virginia 578 

Colonel, 5th Virginia Cavalry. 

By Robert S. Morgan, of Charlottesville, Virginia. 

PAXTON, ELISHA F., B. L., of Rockbridge county, Virginia 346 

Brigadier-General, Stonewall Brigade. 

By Major J. B. Dorman, of Lexington, Virginia. 

PEAKE, WILLIAM B., of Spotsylvania county, Virginia 168 

Private, Company A, loth Virginia Infantry. 

PEEK, WILLIAM HOPE, M. D., of Hampton, Virginia 754 

Surgeon, Confederate States Army. 



C O 1[ T E L' T 8 . 23 

PAGE 

PEGRAM, WM. JOHNSON, of Virginia 714 

Colonel of Artillery, 3d Corps, A. N. Y, 

By W. Gordon McCabe, of Petersburg, Virginia. 

PENDLETON, ALEXANDER S., of Lexington, Virginia 653 

LicutenaDt-Colouel and A. A. G., 2d Corps, A. N. V. 

By Colonel William Allan, M. A., Waghington and Lee University. 



PHELPS, WILLIAM B., of Covington, Kentucky 80 

Private, 1st Kentncky Infantry. 

PITMAN, JOHN D., of Marianna, Florida 244 

Sergeant, Company E, 8th Florida Infantry. 

POLLOCK, THOMxiS GORDON, of New Orleans, Louisiana 437 

A. A. and I. General, Kemper's Brigade, 

POORE, ROBERT H., of Fluvanna eountj^ Virginia 753 

Major, 14th Virginia Infantry, Armistead's Brigade. 

POSEY, CARNOT, of Wooclville, Mississippi » 517 

Brigadier General, Anderson's Division, Hill's Corps. 

PRENTIS, JOSEPH, of the University of Virginia-.... 75?i 



RADFORD, JOHN T., of Montgomery county, Virginia 113 

Lieutcnant-Coloucl, 22d Virginia Cavalry. 

RADFORD, WILLIAM M., B. A., of Montgomery county, Virginia 113 

Ist Lieutenant, 24th Virginia Infantry. 

RANDOLPH, THOMAS J., of Vicksburg, Mississippi 271 

Sergeant, Company A, 19th Virginia Infantry. 

By Judge John L. Cochkan, of Charlottesville, Virgiuia. 

RANDOLPH, WILLIAM AY., of Clarke county, Virginia 551 

Lieutenant-Colonel, commanding 2d Virginia Infantry. 

By John Esten Cooke, of Virginia. 

RECTOR, WILLIAM B., of Campbell county, Virginia 93 

Captain, Company I, 42d Virginia Infantry. 

REDWOOD, .JOHN M , of Mobile, Alal)ama 193 

Lieutenant, Mobile Cadets, :kl Alabama Infantry. 



24 



CONTENTS 



n 



PAGE 

REDWOOD, JOHN TYLER, of Mobile, Alabama 167 

Private, Albemarle Artillery. 

RIDDICK, SAMUEL A., of RiddicksvilJe, North Carolina 411 

Private, Conijiany A, 13th Virginia lufautry. 

RIDLEY, WM. GOODWYN, of Southamptou county, Virginia 239 

Private, Company G, (ith Virginia Infantry. 

RIVES, GEORGE TUCKER, of Albemarle county, Virginia 708 

Captain, Company I, 40:li Virginia Infantry. 

RIVES, CHARLES M., of Albemarle coimty, Virginia 7o3 

Lieutenant, Albemarle Artillery. 

ROANE, THOMAS R., of Essex county, Virginia 627 

Private, Company F, Otli Virginia Cavalry. 

Anonymous. 

ROGERS, LOUIS MAGOON, of Accomac county, Virginia G21 

Lieutenant, aud Ensign, 4(ith Virginia Infantry. 

By Rev. John C. Lo.no, of Charlottesville, Virginia. 

ROSS, WM. ALEXANDER, of Culpepcr county, Virginia 7.")3 

Lieutenant 52d Virginia Infantry. 

ROYALL, GEORGE K , B. L, of Richmond, Virginia 241 

Private, Company G, lllh Virginia Infantry. 

RUSSEL, ALBERT, of Iluntsville, Alabama 50 

Private, 7ih Alabama Infantry. 



SCOTT, THOMAS J., of Montgomery, Alabama 751 

Private, Sd Alabama Infantry. 

SEABROOK, C. PINCKNEY, of Beaufort, South Carolina 350 

2d Licutenr.nt, Company A, Ist South Carolina \'o!untoers. 

By W. GoKBON M'Caee, of Petersburg, Virginia. 

SELDEN, WARNER LEWIS, of Gloucester county, Virginia 203 

Private, Company B, 7th Virginia Cavalry. 

SHEARER, RICHARD B., of Appomattox county, Virginia 755 



CON T E N T S . 25 

PAGE 

SHELTON, Dk. CIIxiRLES O., of St. Louis, Missouri 108 

Assistimt Surgoou, Guibcr's Battery, Army of the Mississippi. 

SHELTON, CHARLES T., of Louisa county, Virginia 198 

Private, Andersou''8 Battery. 

By Ecv. II. P. P. McCcT, of Lotuf-a couuty, Virgiuia. 

SHEPHERD, WALKER F., of Fluvauua couuty, Virgiuia 48 

1st Scrgeaut, Comi)auy F, 44tli Virgiuia Infantry. 

SHIELDS, WiLLLV^r S., of Mempliis, Tennessee 119 

1st Lieutenant of Artillery, Army of tlic Mississippi. 

SMITH, SUMMERFIELD, M. A., of Albemarle couuty, Virgiuia 543 

Captain, 1st Regiment of Engineers. 

By ProfesBor II. H. IIarris, M.A., Ricnmond College. Virginia. 

SMITH, FRANCIS W., of Louisiana 727 

Lieutenant-Colonel of Artillery. 

By Professor C. H. Toy, M. A., D. D., Greenville, South Carolina. 

STEVENS, HENRY L., of South Carolina 245 

Volunteer Aide to Colonel P. F. Stevens, commanding Ilolcombe Legion. 

STUART, GEORGE WASHINGTON, of Texas 364 

Private, KockbrLdgo Artillery. 

Anonymous. 



TAYLOE, LOMAX, of Roanoke couuty, Virgiuia 515 

Adjutant, 2d Virgiuia Cavalry. 

TAYLOR, BERNARD M., of Caroline county, Virgiuia 755 

TEBBS, W. WILLOUGHBY, of Albemarle couuty, Virginia G17 

Captain, Company K, 2d Virgiuia Cavalry. 

By Professor W. Le Roy Broun, M. A., University of Georgia. 

THOMPSON, JOHN B., M. A., of Little Rock, Arkansas 98 

Lieutenant-Colonel, 1st Arkausas Infantry. 

By Rev. George B. Taylor, Chaplain lo the University of Virgiuia. 

THOMPSON, WM. B., of Virgiuia 755 



26 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

THORNTON, JOHN T., B. L., of Cumberlaud county, Virginia 752 

Colouel, — Virginia Cavalry. 
TILLINGHAST, HARRISON, of Marianna, Florida 752 

TOWLES, JOHN T., of Bayou Sara, Louisiana 341 

Private, 21st Mississippi Infantry. 

TOWLES, WILLIAM E., M. A., B. L., of Bayou Sara, Louisiana 341 

Private, Washington Artillery. 

TUCKER, H. ST. GEORGE, of Ashland, Virginia .' 329 

Lieutcuant-Colouel, 15th Virginia Infantry. 

By Professor C. S. Venable, LL. D., University of Virginia. 

TURNER, JAMES CAMP, of Huntsville, Alabama 40 

1st Lieutenant, Huntsville Guards, 4th Alabama Infantry. 

Anonymous, 



VAN DeGRAFF, WILLIAM J., of Gainesville, Alabama 755 

VOSS, FRANKLIN, of Maryland 755 



WALKE, ISAAC TALBOT, of Norfolk, Virginia 676 

1st Lieutenant and Ordnance Officer, Fiiz Lee's Cavalry. 

By Rev. Robert Gatewood, of Norfolk, Virginia. 

WALKER, JAMES T., of Richmond, Texas 755 

WARD, WILLIAM N., of Richmond county, Virginia 775 

WASHINGTON, J. E. McPHERSON, of Charleston, South Carolina 44 

2d Lieutenant of Artillery, C. S. A., General Garaett's Start'. 
By Rev. Joum Johnsos, of South Carolina, and Ilev. Jno. L. Jolinson, B. A. of Virginia. 

WASHINGTON, JOHN A., of Fauquier county, Virginia 57 

Lieutenant-Colonel and Aido-de-Camp to General R. E. Lee. 

By John S. Blackburn, of Alexandria, Virginia. 

WATSON, DAVID, M. A., of Virginia 570 

Major, 1st Regiment Virginia Artillery. 

By liou. B. JoHNSoK I>arboue, Rector of the Univt'rsily of Virginia. 



CONTENTS. 27 

PAGE 

WATSON, JOHN D., of Charlottesville, Virgiuia 755 

Private, Company K, 2d Virginia, Cavalry. 

WERTENBAKER, THOMAS G., of the University of Virginia - 154 

Private, Company A, lOtli AHrgiuia Infantry, 
WHEATLEY, JAMES, of Culpepcr county, Virgiuia 755 

WINSTON, JAMES E., of Louisa county, Virginia 259 

2d Sergeant, Company D, 13tli Virginia Infantry. 

WRENN, WALTER, M. A., of Isle of Wight county, Virginia 470 

Captain and A. A. G., Pryor's Brigade. 

WRENN, FENTON E., of Isle of Wight county, Virginia 47i) 

2d Lieutenant, Company I, 3d Virginia Infantry. 

WRIGHT, WILLIAM A., of Tappahannock, Virginia 17G 

Captain, Company F, 55tli Virgiuia Infantry, 

WRIGHT, WILLIAM S., of Norfolk county, Virginia 532 

Adjutant, Cist Virginia Infantry, 

Anonymous 

WYATT, Dk. RICHARD O., of Albemarle county, Virginia <)ia 

Assistant Surgeon, Confederate States Army. 

WYATT, JAMES W., of Albemarle county, Virginia Cl;5 

Captain, Albemarle Artillery. 



YOUNG, CHARLES OGILVIE, of Spotsylvania county, Virgiuia 282 

Private, Company B., 30tli Virgiuia Infantry. 



.Memohial Poem,., 757 

By Jno. i{. Thompson, 3. L., of New York city. 



The University Memorial 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



CONRAD BROTHERS. 



Holmes A. Conrad, Sergeant, and H. Tuckek Conrad, Private, 
" Border Guards," 2d Virginia Infantry. 

The 21st day of July, 1861, closed upon a scene of mingled 
joy and sadness for the South. The first wave of invasion had 
vainly spent itself against the rock of Southern valor and endur- 
ance. The defiant host, which, on the morning of that eventful 
day, had advanced with its proud battle-cry of " On to Rich- 
mond!", were at sunset seeking safety in a hasty and disorderly 
retreat to the Potomac. The dead and dying left uncared for 
where they fell, the abandoned guns and colors, all showed the 
haste of the foe to leave the fatal field ; while the garments and 
accoutrements, strewing for miles the road in rear of the scene of 
action, might well remind one of the flight of the Syrians from 
Samaria. 

Yet the victory had been bought with blood. The same trains 
which conveyed the joyful tidings tliat a great battle had been 
fought and won by Southern arms, were freighted with the lifeless 
bodies of many gallant soldiers, who had fought their first and last 
battle at Manas.sas. Many a fond sister was called to weep beside 
the grave of him who had given his life a ransom for her happiness 



32 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. ^^'^'^' 

and honor. Many a devoted parent grieved for him who would 
have been the stay and comfort of his declining years. Many a 
household, like those of plague-stricken Egypt, mourned its first- 
born. 

Yet the scourge of war had dealt no heavier blow than the 
stroke whereby, at one and the same instant, the Conrad brothers 
fell. They were the only sons of Mr. David H. Conrad, for 
many years a prominent lawyer and warm supporter of the Church 
in Martinsburg, and himself the son of Dr. Daniel Conrad, of 
"Winchester. Their > mother was the eldest daughter of Judge 
Dabney Carr, of the Court of Appeals. Under her admirable 
influence, and under the constant control of their estimable father, 
they spent their earliest years. To these first associations are 
doubtless due to a great extent the many lovely traits which even 
slight acquaintances could see in them. So were they united in 
their tastes, their feelings, their sympathies, their deaths, that it is 
well-nigh impossible to dissociate them even in a sketch of their 
respective lives. 

Of these two brothers, the elder. Holmes Addison Conrad, 
was born in Martinsburg, on the 30th of September, 1837, and 
lived to be about twenty-three years and ten months old. Henry 
Tucker Conrad was born December 17th, 1839. Seven months 
and four days after he had reached the age of manhood, at the 
same instant with his brother, he passed from the vanity of earthly 
youth to " the bloom of a youth which knows no decay." 

It may be best to pursue in common their histories to the point 
where for a brief space they diverged. They, four sisters and 
their parents, composed a family where "peace and happiness, 
truth and justice, religion and piety," were established; where 
the graces of religion added all their charms to dispositions which 
nature had already rendered lovely. Here was verified the 
Psalmist's statement that "it is a good thing for brethren to 
dwell together in unity." Here genuine unselfishness and Chris- 
tian love united with a golden cord the family circle, and added a 
heavenly sweetness to the purest earthly joys. If it be not sacri- 
lege thus to approach the spot where earth's purest treasures are 
enshrined, and to lift the veil which hides from the public gaze 
the hallowed pleasure of domestic love, it may be truly said that 
he who was privileged to enter even for a few days this bright and 
happy home, must have felt that it was good to be there, — that 



1S()1.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 33 



the parent of sons raised amid such associations raiglit, when 
death removed them, well exclaim with the aged patriarch, 
"If I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved. If ye take 
these from me, ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to 
the grave." 

Still surrounded by the priceless influences of a Christian home, 
they passed their first school-days under the tuition of Mr. John 
W. Page, then principal of the Martinsburg Acadetny. When 
]Mr. Page resigned this post, they followed him to Maryland, and 
for a year continued under his charge in the family of Dr. West, 
near Fi'ederick City. At the close of their twelve montlis' resi- 
dence here, they were sent to the Winchester Acadea:iy, where 
Holmes completed his school-boy career. At the conclusion of 
this period they separated, only to enjoy at intervals each other's 
company in the home both loved so well, until May, 1861, when 
they met to spend together the last few weeks of life, anvl in each 
other's arms to receive the cold embrace of death. 

From the Winchester Academy Holmes went to the University 
of Virginia, where he spent two years, graduating, or taking dis- 
tinctions, in f)ur classes. After the completion of his college 
course he entered upon the duties of manhood as principal of the 
Martinsburg Academy. Here, at the early age of twenty, he had 
secured the niost flourishing school that the institution had ever 
held. Having no assistant, he confined himself to about thirty 
pupils, being thus forced to decline about half the number of ap- 
plicants. So great were his faithfulness and success at this most 
arduous post for such a youth, that his resignation, after an incum- 
bency of two years, was matter of deep regret alike to the Board 
of Trustees and to tlie other patrons of the school. At his depar- 
ture from Martinsburg the whole community felt tiie loss of an 
accomplished teacher, a useful citizen, and a' bright ornament to 
the society in which he moved. His next place of residence was 
near " The Plains," in Fauquier County. Ere he left this home in 
the spring of 18G1 to join the Confederate army, he had gained for 
himself the place of a beloved son in the family which he had en- 
tered as a teacher. About the time of the secession of Virginia ho 
left the pursuits of peace, and as a defender of his invaded State, 
enlisted in the "Border Guards" of Martinsburg. This cora[)any 
formed a portion of the 2d regiment of Virginia infantry; as a 
member of it Holmes belonged to the "Stonewall " Brigade, and 



34 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[July. 



was one of the number in whose blood itself and its commander 
were baptised with this imperisliable name. 

As regards his character, its softer and finer shades could not 
be portrayed but by one who had enjoyed intimate association with 
him, even as the artist can only after the closest study of the fea- 
tures reproduce the expression of his subject. 

One who, in the capacity of a pastor, knew him well, whites of 
him: — "He was always the brightest and most genial of boys, a 
general favorite with everybody. As he advanced toward man- 
hood, his cheerful and happy temperament brought sunshine into 
every company he frequented. Tiiough for some years a very 
moral man and a great advocate of the Temperance cause, he made 
no profession of religion until the time of the Episcopal Conven- 
tion held in Winchester in May, 1858. Although one blessed 
with such Christian training and the object of so many parental 
prayers, must often have been the subject of deep religious convic- 
tions, yet he did not resolve to devote his life to Jesus until the 
closing services of this Convention. There, having casually met 
his former pastor near the church door, and being by him most 
urgently exhorted to consider the subject of religion, he in a few 
hours sought a renewal of the conversation. The plan of salva- 
tion through Christ's atonement being then sim})ly and plainly 
declared to him, ' he saw it in a moment, and there enjoyed a feel- 
ing of pardoning love.' From that time to the day of his death 
he was an active, earnest Christian disciple." 

When Holmes closed at Winchester his school-days. Tucker 
was scut to the Episcopal High School of Virginia, then under 
the charge of the Eev. John P. McGuire. During his first ses- 
sion there, an event occurred which led numbers of the boys to 
turn their thoughts to the subject of their souls' salvation. 
Tucker became the subject of vivid religious impressions, which, 
under the influence and guidance of God's Spirit, deepened into 
a thorough and unmistakable change of heart. A few days before 
his return home for the vacation, he, in company with about nine- 
teen of his school-fellows, renewed before God and man "tlie 
solemn vow, promise and profession made for them in baptism." 
One other year he remained at the High School, taking an active 
part in the semi-weekly prayer-meetings which the boys had 
established among themselves. At this time it was his daily cus- 
tom to retire at noon, along with a little company who liad turned 



ISf.l.] 



THE UmVEESITY MEMORIAL. 35 



their faces Zionward, to a private room, for communion with God 
and for devotional study of the Scriptures. Hence he miglit have 
said with the Psalmist, " Evening and morning and at noon will 
I prav; and He shall hear my voice." Thus, from the beginning 
of his Christian course, did he use all means within his power to 
''grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ." After leaving the High School he spent two years 
at the University, faithfully laboring for his Divine Master in the 
Young Men's Christian Association, in the weekly prayfir-raeet- 
ing, in the Sunday-School, and in the Missionary meeting, or 
prayer-meeting in those parts of the College where none of the 
boarders were professors of religion. From the moment that he 
enlisted under Christ's banner, he had devoted himself soul and 
body to the service of the Saviour. In the choice of his occupa- 
tion in life the language of his heart was, "Lord, what wilt Thou 
have me to do ? " He rejoiced, therefore, when, after many ear- 
nest prayers, the leadings of Providence plainly drew him to the 
Christian ministry, and he felt " himself inwardly moved of the 
Holy Ghost " to become an ambassador for Christ. Accordingly, 
he entered the Theological Seminary near Alexandria, Virginia, 
as a candidate for orders. Here he remained for two or three 
years, and, had not the session of the Seminary been interrupted 
by the menaces of tlie Federal troops, he would have been ordained 
Deacon at the July commencement. 

LTpon the suspension of the exercises of this institution, Tucker 
returned to Martinsburg. After a few days spent at home, wliile 
Gen. Patterson, of the Federal army, held his headquarters in the 
town. Tucker passed through the enemy's lines and joined his 
brother in the Confederate army under General Johnston, then in 
front of, or near Winchester. 

Before passing to the last events of his brief career, his char- 
.acter and disposition claim attention. These are more easily 
admired than described or imitated. He was a generous, warm- 
hearted, noble Christian man. Naturally bright, buoyant, and 
cheerful, he loved to impart to others the happiness he felt. As 
a Christian, he was a "living epistle known and read of all men." 
Few shadows ever obscured the sunlight in his path to Heaven, 
and the example of his life declared to those who saw it, the great 
gain of godliness. Ever walking in and reflecting the light of 
his Master's countenance in his daily conversation, he "pve- 
eminently exemplified "'the hcmitij of holiness." 



36 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



No more faithfal delineation of liis character can be drawn than is 
furnished by the words of one who, as a Professor at the Seminary, 
marked well his diligence in those studies whereby, under God's 
blessing, he might have made others wise unto salvation. " I could 
not help beipg struck," he Avrites, '-with his amiable character, 
which had been so sanctified by Divine grace as to render him a 
disciple who not only loved Jesus, but whom Jesus loved. I need 
scarcely say how conscientious he was in his attendance upon his 
class d*uties, and how interested in his studies of the original 
Scriptures, into which it was my privilege to guide him a little 
way. He was unusually interested in works of charity to the 
poor and sick and suffering in the neighborhood. His piety was of 
an active kind. Like his Divine Master, in whose ste}is he humbly 
trod, he went about doing good. There is, near Alexandria, 
an almshouse which contains a motley collection of the poor and 
sick and lame and blind. Thither he regularly went on Sunday 
afternoons, and his sweet voice was heard in exhorting them to a 
better and heavenly life, and in singing the sweet songs of Zion. 
Our great hopes of his future career of usefulness were disap- 
pointed when he fell with his brother. 'They were lovely and 
pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided.' 
Like John the Baptist, of whose short ministry of eighteen 
months it is said in Scripture that he fulfilled his course, so our 
dear brother reached sooner than the rest of us the goal, and 
entered upon the joy of his Lord." 

There remains only the sad task of narrating the closing scene 
of these bright young lives. A few days after Tucker joined 
liis brother in the army, General Johnston hastened to reinforce 
General Beauregard at Manassas. On the day of the battle, the 
regiment to which the Coneads belonged lay from 10 o'clock 
A. M. to 2 or 3 o'clock P. M. under a heavy fire of shot and shell. 
Being then ordered to advance, they obeyed, and a flank move- 
ment being made by a body of Federal troops, the regiment was 
commanded to fall back. Holmes, who, as Sergeant, was at the 
right of his company, and his cousin, Peyton E. Harrison, the 
Lieutenant, declared they would not retreat. Tucker was on the 
left, and a ravine separated the brothers. Holmes called out, 
" Come over here by me. Tuck; we will not fall back." Tucker, 
though not seen on account of the ravine through which he was 
moving to join his brother, was heard to say, " Come, boys, rally. 



ISGI.] 



THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOKIAL. o/ 



rally, we'll not fall back." When next seen they were lying 
together, their faces touching, their arms around each other's necks, 
and both dead. One of their comrades said that Holmes was 
shot first through the heart, and Tucker reached forward to catch 
him, and in the act was shot through the body with a piece of shell. 
Thus they fell, and thus they lay for hours, Holmes still retaining 
his smile and color. When the storm of battle ceased, friendly 
hands restored their last mortal remains to the home which they 
had died to defend. On the 23d of July they were buried at 
midnight, like one of England's famous soldiers. To them may 
well be applied the lines Avritten soon after their death by a lady 
of Virginia : — 

" Eyes dim with tears and sorrow, 
And a chauged home waits in vaiu 
The old f^iniiliar footstep, 
Which cau ne'er return again ; 
And Virginia's lovely Valley, 
Once a sea of waving grain, 
Lies unhroken by the furrow. 
Save those where sleep her slain." 

Perhaps this imperfect sketch can have no better conclusion 
than an extract from a letter of that gallant soldier. Captain John 
L. Massie, who gave his life to the same cause for which the 
Conrad brothers fell. Describing his visit to the cemetery at 
Marti nsburg, he says : — " The graves of the Conrads are both 
together, and both are covered by one large limestone slab, with 
the upper surface polished, on which is inscribed this epitaph : — 

HOLMES ADDISON CONRAD HENRY TUCKER CONRAD 

Christian Brothers, 

Lie buried here, side by side, as they feU in battle, 

July 21st, 18G1. 

Brothers in blood, in faith ; » 

Brothers in youthful bloom ; 
Brothers in life, brothers in death, 

Brothers in one same tomb. 
WeU fought they " the good fight ; " 

In death their victory icon; 
Sprung at one bound to Heaven^ light, 

And Qod's eternal i>on. 



38 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [juiy, 

% 

EDMUND FONTAINE, Je., 

Sergeant-Major, 4th Virginia Cavalry. 

On Sunday, July 2ist, ISGl, President Davis telegraphed from 
Manassas to Richmond that wo had won "a brilliant but dearly 
bought victory." But few who read the brief announcement 
realised how "dearly bought" it Avas, until in the list of casual- 
ties they saw- the names of their own relatives or personal friends. 
Such at least was the experience of Edmuni> Fontaine's family, 
when the news of his death, following so quickly that of the 
victory, reached them on Monday the 22d. 

He was the son of Colonel Edmund Fontaine — for many years 
President of the Virginia Centi-al Railroad — and was born in 
Hanover County, February 3, 1838. In his fourteenth year he 
removed to Richmond in order to complete, under Colonel George 
S. Patton, his preparation for the University of Virginia. He 
entered that Institution in October, 1855, and spent two sessions in 
the academic classes, graduating in Chemistry, Moral Philosophy, 
and Political Economy. Returning then to Hanover, he took 
possession of his farm, and was quietly engaged in agricultural 
pursuits when the Avar summoned him to another service. 

In the Spring of 1861 he volunteered in the Hanover Troop; 
but when that company was assigned to the 4th Virginia regiment 
of cavalry, Edmund was made Sergeant-Mnjor. This regiment 
was engaged on the frontier previous to the battle of Bull Run, 
and in the retreat of the Confederate forces from Fairfax Court- 
House the Hanover Troop held the post of honor, bringing up 
the rear. In the interval between the engagement of the 18th of 
July and that of the 21st it was constantly occupied. But it was 
on the latter day, when the enemy beaten back so often, at last 
broke* and began to retreat, that the grand opportunity of the 
cavalry occurred. We extract from a letter of the gallant Lieu- 
tenant of the Hanover Troop, William B. Newton, so much as 
refers to the conduct and fate of the Sergeant-Major. The letter 
was dated " Centreville, July 22, 1861," and says:—". . . 
Colonel Lay then rode up and told us that the time for ns to act 
had arrived. Our whole body of cavalry, 2,700 strong, now' 
rushed like the wind to the front. It was indeed a brilliant spec- 



1861.] 



THE UNIYEESITY MEMORIAL. 39 



tacle, as with slackened rein and sabres drawn the whole com- 
mand dashed past. The whole line resounded with continued 
cheering. The force was divided into different detachments. 
Colonel Radford, with six companies, was ordered to cross a short 
distance below the enemy's extreme right and intercept his column. 
Our company was in front, and I was riding in front of my platoon, 
Avhen, after crossing the swamp, we came suddenly on a detach- 
ment of the enemy concealed in the bushes, with their pieces 
levelled. The Colonel ordered the charge, and the boys rushed on. 
Poor Edmund Foxtaixe was at my side when we rode over two 

of them, and they grounded their arms to E Vi , who 

was just'in our rear. AVe galloped on in pursuit of tlie rest, who 
retreated across a field, towards the road on which the enemy was 
retreating. Fontaix'E was just behind me. Saunders, a fine 
young fellow, just twenty-four years of age, and splendidly 
mounted, dashed by us. The enemy had concealed themselves 
behind a fence ; we rode up, and I demanded their surrender ; 
they made no reply. I ordered Saunders to fire ; before he 
levelled his carbine the whole squad poured in a volley. Saun- 
ders fell dead at my feet, and Edmuxd Fontaixe reeled in his 
saddle, exclaiming, "Save me, boys; I am killed!" He was 
caught in the arms of his cousin, who was just in my rear." 

Foxtaixe's place as Sergeant-Major was in the rear of the 
regiment, but his impetuous gallantry had brought him to the side 
of the Lieutenant who headed the charge. "The ball struck his 
sword-belt," says another writer, "and passed tlirough him. ITe 
was supported from the battle-field by his cousin and another 
member of the Hanover Troop, both of whom he begged to leave 
him on the field and go back in pursuit of the enemy. Soon af- 
terwards he fell into a deep sleep from exhaustion. When he 
awoke he was told he was dying. He Avas perfectly conscious to 
the la.st; sent his love to his family and friends. His dying mes- 
sage to his mother was, ' Tell mother I have always tried to do 
my duty.' To his father lie sent word that he died heading a 
charge. He then prayed almost incessantly till he died, having- 
survived his wounds for twelve hours." 

The subjoined extract from an obituary notice of Edmuxd 
Foxtaixe, ])repared by one who had been his friend at home, at 
school, and at college, forms a fitting conclusion of this sketch : — 

"The writer, from an intimate acquaintance with the deceased 



40 THE UNWEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



for the past eight years, is enabled to say with truth that no man 
had warmer or more devoted friends. And no man better de- 
served them. He possessed the characteristics of his Huguenot 
blood; he was warm in his affections, brave and generous in his 
impulses, firm in his friendships and convictions, and yet possessed 
that rarest of virtues, a willingness to acknowledge an error. To 
the world he strictly veiled his inner feelings ; but few Avere ad- 
mitted to his confidence, and it is by that chosen few that he was 
most beloved. A humorous faculty, especially for the mock- 
heroic, made him a choice companion. His head was not inferior 
to his heart. Plis University career was successful enough to 
show what more energy could have accomplished. In j^erson he 
was small, but handsome, well-formed and active; and he pos- 
sessed the usual manly accomplishments of our times. In short, 
he was the personification of that much-abused term — the Old 
Virginia gentleman. 

" AVhen he formed his political views, he became a warm States' 
Rights man, and was ready to defend his views with tongue or 
sword. In matters of religion he was reserved, and spoke but 
rarely of his views; but he had thought much on the subject, es- 
pecially since the commencement of the war. When he went to 
Manassas, both he and many of his friends had a mysterious fore- 
boding that he would never return alive, and this thought, kindled 
by the remembrance of his early religious education at his mother's 
knee, had great influence on his mind. He died, ^uot as one 
without hope.' " 



JAMES CAMP TURNER, 

First Lieutenant, Huntsville Guards, 4tli Alabama Infantry. 

Geoige Turner, a wealthy London merchant, emigrated to the 
United States about the year 1740, and settled in Prince William 
County, Virginia. John Turner, son of George Turner, was a 
Captain in the Revolutionary War. He married Elizabeth 
Burruss, and removed to Caroline County, Virginia. Daniel 
Burruss Turner, son of George Turner, and a native of Caroline 
County, emigrated to the South, and settled at Huntsville, Alabama, 



isoi.] THP] UKIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL.' 41 

in 1818. lie was married to Susan Deadcrick Searcy, daughter of 
Major Robert Searcy, of Nashville, Tennessee, one of General 
Jackson's aids in the Creek War, and for many years afterwards a 
Paymaster in the United States army. Major Searcy's mother 
was a descendant of the Henderson who settled with John Smith 
in 1607 at Jamestown, and his grandfather — a man of great 
learning — was a ])olitical exile from Wales. 

James CA:\rp TunxEr., son of Daniel Burruss Turner, was 
born at Huntsville, Alabama, October 15, 1838. In his child- 
hood he was remarkable for his gentleness of disposition, his filial 
devotion, and his deep religious sense. As he grew up, his 
graceful person, easy manners, fondness for study, and increasing 
reverence for the tnit! s of religion, foretokened in the boy the 
hi 'h order of the man ho ^vas aftervvards to become. At the age 
of twelve years, Camp (as he was familiarly called at home and 
by his associates) was placed in a French school in a neighboring 
State. There he spent three years, and during that time made 
such proficiency in the French language as to speak it fluently. 
When fifteen he returned to Huntsville, and, entering a classical 
school, pursued his studies with great diligence till the summer of 
1856. Here he acquired the well-merited distinction of being 
one of the best proficients in the school in Ancient Languages and 
Mathematics. 

Tasteful in the preparation of his exercises, thorough in his 
recitations, punctual in the discharge of his duties, always exem- 
plary in his language and deportment, and of almost maidenly 
modesty, he was indeed a model student, and to his instructor it 
M'as a pleasing task to watch the development of his well-balanced 
and gifted mind. In 1855 he connected himself with the 
Methodist Church, and, as will be seen in the sequel, lived a pious 
and consistent Christian to the day of his death. 

In October, 1856, he entered the University of Virginia as an 
academic student. He became a member of the Jeiferson Society, 
and at the Anniversary celebration of that session read the 
Declaration of Independence. The next year he took the schools 
of Ancient Languages and Chemistry, and graduated in the latter. 
During this jieriod his Christian character was unquestioned ; he 
was prominent in the students' prayer-meeting, and punctual in 
his attendance uj)on tiie public religious services. 

In June, 1858, the death of his mother — to whom his filial 



42 THE UXIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



devotion was luiboundecl — seemed to unfit him for study. He 
consequently withdrew frooi the University and returned home. 

In the spring of 1859 he Avent abroad for the benefit of foreign 
travel, and visited many of the most interesting portions of 
Europe. His letters to his friends at home were so replete Avith 
matters of general interest, graphic descriptions of what he saw 
and felt, that, at the urgent request of many, they were given to 
the public. Their entertaining character is attested by the fact 
that they wfire copied into various newspapers in other States. 

After an absence of eighteen months, he arrived at home when 
the whole country was violently agitated and fast drifting into 
civil war. In heart and soul a secessionist, he at once identified 
himself with the States' Rights party, in this differing from his 
father, who, being politically conservative, was an active supporter 
of Douglas for the Presidency. This difi'erence of sentiment 
furnished occasion to the son to illustrate one beautiful trait in his 
character — his high reverence for his father, and his scrupulous 
respect for his feelings. Camp was a zealous advocate of Breck- 
enridge, but when the day of the election arrived, he decided, even 
at this great crisis in politics, to forego the first privilege he had 
ever had of voting for Pi-esident, because of his unwillingness to 
cast his " maiden " vote in opposition to his father, remarking that 
one vote loould not he much loss to Brechenridge, but might tcound 
his father's fcelinc/s a great deal. 

The fall of Sumpter fired him with military ardor, and he at 
once girded himself for the comina: struirsle. He aided in raisino; 
a company of infantry, and was elected 2d Lieutenant. Upon the 
organization of his rc-giment — the immortal 4th Alabama — his 
Captain, the gallant and lamented Egbert J. Jones, was promoted 
to the rank of Colonel, and he to that of 1st Lieutenant. Tiie 
regiment, proceeding at once to Virginia, was stationed at Har- 
per's Ferry, whence it was moved down to Manassas Junction the 
day before the first battle at that place. 

There wins no more gallant soldier on that bloody field than 
Lieutenant Camp Turxkr. But this was not his highest praise: 
he was far more than a gallant soldier; he was brave enough to 
be a Christian, in deed and in truth, everywhere and always. His 
religion was not a loose garment to be thrown off at will ; it 
seemed to be inseparable from his very nature, and surrounded 
even his soldier-life with a halo of beauty. At his request, on the 



1S31] THE UJS'IVEESITY MEMORIAL. 43 

(lav before the company took leave of home, tlie minister of his 
Church appointed a special Communion service for the soldiers 
and their friends. That service was perhaps the most touching 
scene ever witnessed in Huntsville, and to many brave volunteers, 
who bowed at that altar, it was their last communion on earth 
with their dearest relativ^es and friends, who, with breaking hearts, 
commended them to the keeping of Him without whose notice not 
even a s^xirrow falls to the ground. Whenever on the Sabbath 
there was religious service in camp, Lieutenant Tuetxer usually 
took it upon himself to arrange the rude pulpit for the Chaplain, 
and not only invariably attended the service himself, when pos- 
sible, but induced many others to follow his example. 

On the night of the arrival of the regiment on the battle-field, 
lights being forbidden, because of the close vicinity of the enemy, 
he read aloud, by the light of the moon, two chapters in the New 
Testament to the officers of his company. He then lay down to 
rest for the last time in life, observing as he was about to do so, 
" I think, from the signals, there will be hot work to-morrow." 
The heroism of the Fourth Alabama, illustrated in the fierce 
struggle on that "morrow," has been heralded to the Avorld, and 
is now historic. In the thick of the fight, at about 11 o'clock, 
Lieutenant James Ca:mp Turxer fell, pierced through the breast. 
"Tell my sister," said he, "I die happy on the battle-fiold, in de- 
fence of my country ; " and with these words on his lips — his dying 
message to his idolized, only sister — his pure spirit ascended to God. 

Such was the end of this truly estin^able young man. The 
universal burst of grief with which the dispatch announcing his 
death was received in Huntsville, is yet remembered. Terrible 
indeed was the blow to his doting father and his devoted sister; 
and touching were the words of that venerable n)an, mIiou, in the 
anguish of a broken heart, he exclaimed, "iJc tvas the IohI of my 
narne!'^ Many letters of condolence were received. From his 
surviving comrades — from various parts of the country — even 
from Europe — they came to testify of his worth. 

In December, 1861, his remains were brought home by his 
father, and deposited with, military honors in the Huntsville 
cemetery. Since then the father has been laid to rest by "the last 
of his name," and parents and son sleep together now. One only 
lives — daughter, sister; and in her heart the dead still live, 
their memories fresh as the flowers and evergreens which, with 
mournful pleasure, she often strews about their graves. 



44 THE UjS'IVEKfillY MEMORIAL. [j„;y, 



J. E. Mcpherson Washington. 

2d Lieutenant of Artillery, C. S. A., General Garnett's Staff. 

The name of Colonel William A. Washington belongs to the 
history of the Revolutionary War. Like his great kinsman — 
the man who was '^ first in war, first in peace, and first in the 
hearts of his countrymen" — he throw himself unreservedly into 
that struggle; and, from the day when, as Ciiptain in the Conti- 
nental Army, " he distinguished himself at Trenton," down to 
the close of the war, when he came forth from the British prison, 
where he had been sent after being wounded and captured at 
Eutaw, his active service and brilliant career, chiefly as a cavalry 
officer, testify to his vigorous support of the principles for which 
the American people were contending. His fame as a soldier, 
always honorable, is especially connected with the battle of Cow- 
pens, January 17, 1781. It was the fierce cavalry charge led by 
Colonel Washington, at the very crisis of the battle, which routed 
the British and achieved the victory of that day. Pursuing the 
routed columns, he engaged their commander. Colonel Tarleton, 
in a hand-to-hand encounter, and only missed capturing that 
officer by having his own horse shot under him. For such emi- 
nent service, Congress voted him a silver medal. 

J. E. McPheeson Washington was the great-grandson of 
the Revolutionary soldier above mentioned. He was born in 
Charleston, South Carolina, October 15, 183G. His father was 
William Washington, his mother the youngest daughter of 
Colonel J. E. McPherson. For a number of years he was a 
pupil in the State Military School at Charleston ; afterwards, for 
a short time, a cadet at West Point. In October, 1854, he became 
a student at the University of Virginia, where he spent three con- 
secutive sessions. 

He was a " light-hearted, laughter-loving " boy, with genial 
and sunny temperament, gathering friends as the child gathers 
flowers; all that he approached he made his own. In later years 
he was not diffi^rent, except as the man difflsrs from the boy. At 
the University, he was better known for his eminent good fellow- 
ship than for severe application to books. Many were unquestion- 
ably more ardent in the pursuit of college honors, but it may be 



isoi.] THE UNlt^ERSITY MEMORIAL. 45 

doubted whether any were more popular. His eloquent eyes, 
l)right face, compact figure, erect, manly carriage and quick step, 
are well remembered to-day by many who have forgotten even 
the names of such as received the highest literary distinction. As 
a member of the JeflPerson Society, he greatly preferred for tlie 
public celebrations the Marshal's baton to the Orator's manu- 
script; and his Society frequently acknowledged his qualifications 
f )r the office to which he aspired, by electing him to perform its 
duties. The reader, who may have been a student at tliis time, 
will have no difficulty in recalling him, as he appeared on sucli 
occasions: — " T!ie JelT," under his manoeuvring, is in line upon 
the Lawn. At the precise moment for entering the Public Hall, 
the shrill, clear order, "Forward — marcli!" is Jieard ; the 
column moves forward with military step, through the Rotunda, 
and Mack Washington is in his glory — writing in rose-color 
the prophecy of the hloochj future. 

At the close of the session of '5(3-57, after receiving, amid the 
loud and prolonged cheerings of liis fellow-students, a Certificate 
of Proficiency in ]\Iedical Jurisprudence, he returned to Charleston 
and betook himself to mercantile pursuits. But naturally enough 
to those who knew him, he was not content v/ith such an occupa- 
tion ; he cared too little for money to make it the object of his 
life; the quiet duties of the counting-room were too tame; ques- 
tions of loss and gain, so fascinating to many minds, interested 
him but little. And hence he M'as constantly looking about for 
some sphere of life congenial to his peculiar cast of mind. Such 
a field was soon to be opened to him ; he recognized it at once, and 
with enthusiastic joy. 

On the 20Lh of Pecember, 1860, South Carolina ratified the 
Ordinance of Secession, passed by a unanimous vote of her Con- 
vention, then in session in Charleston. On iho. 26 ih, Mtijor xln- 
derson, then in command of tlie fortifications of Chark-ston Harbor, 
in violation of the pledge of honor entered into by President 
Buchanan with tlie representatives of the State, and in disol)edience 
of instructions from ]Mr. Floyd, then Secretary of War, dis- 
mantled Fort IMoultrie, secretly evacuated it by night, and cross- 
ing the channel in boats, took possession of Fort Sumter, Avliose 
guns,'con\manded the harbor on every side. This Avas regarded by 
Governor Pickens as an overt act of v)ar, and on tiie following 
day he ocupied Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney with State 



46 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



troops. At the latter of these, young Washington — who had 
left liis counting-room immediately after the secession of the State, 
and offered himself as a soldier for her service — was stationed as 
Adjutant of the Post. Thus he participated in the bombardment 
of Fort Sumter. 

In the Spring of 1861, he was commissioued 2d Lieutenant of. 
Artillery, C. S. A., and ordered to Virginia. Before leaving 
Castle Pinckney, however, he received from his comrades in arms 
the most touching assurance of their appreciation. At the last 
dress-parade, in which he took part, the commander of the batal-^ 
lion presented him, on behalf of the companies composing it, with 
sword, sash, belt, epaulettes, and other military insignia. Many 
of the private soldiers then came forward to testify to their affec- 
tion by giving him some little keepsake ; among others, an old 
man, too poor to make a costly gift, but rich in the noblest quali- 
ties of the heart, who, while the tears ran down his wrinkled face, 
drew from his pocket a picve of tobacco and handed it to him, 
saying: — "I must give you something, and this is all I have." 
Surprised and overcome by such exhibitions of affection, Lieutenant 
Washington made no reply, but the lip quivered and the eye 
was moist as he turned away forever from those strong men, who 
held him in their hearts. 

In Virginia, he was assigned to duty on the staff of General 
Garnett, whose gallantry had been conspicuous on many fields in 
Mexico, and with him he shared the hardships and disasters of 
that fatal campaign in Western Virginia. And in this service, 
perilous and exciting, he found, half unconsciously perhaps, what 
he had so long desired — a sphere adapted to the genius of the 
.man. It was one in which the man assumed, as by magic, his 
true proportions. For hardships he cared not ; and the perils of 
war, thickening around him, inspired him to deeds not less 
chivalric than those which are told of cavaliers of the olden time. 
The spirit of his great ancestor lived again, and strove with his 
ancient prowess to perpetuate the rights which were won, in pai t, 
at the battle of the Cowpens, nearly a century before. 

When news was brought to Gurnett at Laurel Hill that Pegrani 
had been overwhelmed at Pich Mountain, Lieutenant Waspiing- 
TON volunteered to go to Pegram's command and learn its condi- 
tion, but the enemy intervening rendered the effort unsuccessful. 
In tha retreat from Laurel Hill, continued amid untold difficulties 



lyci] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 47 

for nine days, and over one hundred and sixty miles, his very 
presence refreshed and inspired all about him with hope. His face, 
bright as in the bright days of his gay college life, encouraged the 
hungry and jaded men, even when no word was spoken ; and liis 
cool bearing and fearless fighting, as time and again he turned and 
held at bay with the rear guard the heavy Federal columns that 
dogged their way, begot again the spirit of resistance in many who 
were ready to faint. 

Immediately after dispositions had been made for a stand at 
Carrick's Ford, on Cheat river, the skirmishers of the enemy 
appeared on the opposite bank. It was hoped that they might be 
some companies of a Georgia regiment, which had been cut off the 
day before ; but the exigencies of the occasion admitted of no 
dela}', and Lieutenant Washington, to resolve the doubt, 
"advanced to .the edge of the bank, and in a stentorian voice 
clieered for Jeif. Davis." He was answered by a volley of mus- 
ketry, which at once revealed the character of the comers. Tiiis 
fire was returned by our infantry and artilleiy, the latter raking 
them with such effect that they broke ranks and left the road. " It 
was he," said a correspondent of one of the Atlanta journals, " wh.o 
fired our artillery with such effect at Cheat River." After an 
hour's hard fighting, the order was given to retreat, when it was 
fi)und that the rifle gun, which had done the greatest execution, 
could not be moved, two of its horses having been killed and the 
carriage broken. This was Lieutenant Washington's favorite 
piece, and he parted from it reluctantly ; first, having drawn a nail 
from the foot of a dead horse, he spiked it ; then leaping upon it, 
while the enemy were scarcely a hundred yards off, he waved his 
sword over his head and hurled his hurrah for '' Davis and the 
Confederacy " almost into their teeth. 

For his gallantry in this action he was recortimended for pro- 
motion, but he scarce mentioned himself when writing of the day 
to his widowed mother, whose heart he knew would beat proudly 
at the story of deeds worthy a Washington. He dwelt chiefly, 
and mournfully, upon the death of his honored commander, 
General Garnett, who, risking his own life to save his men, fell 
deal from the saddle, pierced through the breast by a bullet, just 
as he was succeeding in his effort. 

From Carrick's Ford the enemy did not pursue. The little 
band of Southern troops passed on amid dangers and suff(;rlngs. 



48 THE TJISl'IVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[August, 



under drenching and continuous rains, and often in close proximity 
to otlier bodies of the Federals, until they reached Maryland, and 
thence turned up the Valley of A'irginia. On the 21st of 
July — the very day that their kinsmen wrested victory from 
McDowell at Manassas, and hurled his Grand Army back upon 
Washington — this little force, whose defeat had made McClelland 
a toast through all the jSTorth, reached Monterey and rested. 

Here, like many others who had made this long and exhausting 
retreat, this gallant young officer, whose history we have traced, 
was stricken down with fever, which terminated his life on the 
25th of July, 1861, During the progress of his disease, he would 
not let his mother be informed of it ; it was the truest affection 
that prompted the denial. ''Mamma is delicate," said he; "she 
loves me so, and she cannot get to me ; it will but distress her." 

It must have been painful to the few watchers by that dying 
bed to see one so young, so far from home, thus passing away in 
the very opening of a momentous war. To the friends in Carolina 
and Virginia who knew him best, his death was no ordinary loss; 
it was the disappointing of their hopes of a long career of distin- 
guished military service. Yet in his record, short as it was, they 
found much to testify to that achievement and promise which his 
ancestry led them to expect, and his own conduct in danger so 
nobly fulfilled. 



^YALIvER FRANKLIN SHEPHERD, 

1st Sergeant, Company F. -14th Virginia Infantry. 

The life and death of Walker Shepherd — the one so fresh 
and chaste, the other so sudden and untimely — make us think of 
the half-open blossom that is torn from the stem while the dew of 
tlie morning is still upon it; or of the chiselled vase that is dashed 
to pieces by some rude hand as it is borne to the fountain. With 
all the enthusiasm of youth, with the patriotism of a true Vir- 
ginian, he had hurried to meet the foe that came, with contemptu- 
ous boasting, to subdue the land of his birth. But before he met 
and grappled v/ith that enemy, his life was cut off by a painful 
and tragic accident. 



l.gj-] TPIE UNIA^EESITY MEMOEIAL. 49 

The eldest son of Abrani and jNIaiy L. Shepherd, of Fluvanna 
County, Virginia, he was born Juno 8, 1840. In his life, ami- 
abilit}- of disposition and decision of character were liappily blended. 
From a child, he was taught to fear God by the precept and the 
example of a devoted Christian mother; and thus, remember- 
ing his Creator in the days of his youth and before the evil days 
came, he made, at the age of fifteen, a public jjrofession of faith in 
Christ, and united himself with the Methodist Episcopal Church 
South, in the Fluvanna Circuit, then under the pastoral charge of 
the Rev. Henry T. Attmore. 

As a cadet in tiie Fluvanna Military Institute, iiis course M'as 
creditable alike to himself and to the school. When he left it, he 
held the first rank in the corps. In October, 1S59, he entered 
the University of Virginia, and was still a student at tliat institu- 
tion when the war bc!gan. In the spring of 18G1 he left college, 
and returning home, was chiefly instrumental in raising, and 
organizing the company with which he began and closed his mili- 
tary life. With characteristic unselfishness, he nominated the 
gallant Weisiger to the command of the company, and waiving 
his own claims to office in fiivor of friends who were his juniors 
as cadets, he became 1st Sergeant. On the 17th of May, 1861,, 
Captain Weisiger's command was mustered into service as "Com- 
pany F" of the 44th Virginia Infantry, Colonel Wm. C. Scott; 
and about the beginning of the following month the regiment 
proceeded to Staunton, and thence to reinforce the little array of 
Geueral Garnett. 

By a confusion of orders, however, the regiment was kept march- 
ing and countermarching, while Perrram was stru2;i»;linii; ao-ainst 
fearful odds on Rich Mountain, and it reached that place only in 
time to find his little band overwhelmed and surrendered to Gen. 
Rosecrans. Nothing remaining now but to retreat, the 44th 
retired to Monterey and awaited the remainder of Garnett's army, 
which coming up, it advanced to Greenbrier river, and did picket 
duty on the slopes of Cheat Mountain. The rest of that unfor- 
tunate cam[)aign has been too recently referred to, to be f)rgotten. 

On tlie 21st of August, at the signal fu- dress-parade, "Com- 
pany F" was forming in its street. Sergeant Siiepiieud was 
standing a short distance to the right of the company, conversing 
with a comrade just behind him. Just then, an attached personal 
friend, who was seated on a mess-chest in fro.nt of the regimental 
4 



50 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[August, 



line, rubbing his gun, called out to him, and failing to make him- 
self heard, he snapped his musket for the purpose of arresting his 
attention. Instead of the sharp, short sound that was anticipated, 
it was the death-knell of the Sergeant that broke upon the ear ! 
The piece was loaded, and the bullet intended for Virginia's foe, 
pierced to death the form of her friend ; cutting his cartridge- 
belt in front and ranging upward, it had passed out through the 
back. With the exclamation. "Boys, I am killed!", the young 
man fell to the earth. 

In the regiment, surprise at the report of the gun was as 
nothing, compared with the grief tliat was felt as the word was 
hurriedly passed around, " Sergeant Shepherd is mortaUij 
wounded ! " The duties of the day were immediately suspended, 
and a messenger was dispatched to bear the sad intelligence to the 
family of the dying soldier. Hearing of the latter fact, he re- 
marked, "It is hardly worth while; I will jret there as soon as 
he will." It proved literally true. Quietly and composedly he 
lay, his comrades around and ministering to him, until about 10 
o'clock in the evening, when, as he had lived, he died in the full 
assurance of the Christian's hope. His remains were at once sent 
home and deposited in the family bury ing-ground at " Bel-air," 
in Albemarle County. 

At the evening parade of the next day an order was published, 
expressing in appropriate terms the sorrow of the command at 
their untimely loss. 



ALBERT RUSSEL, 

Private, 7th Alabama Infantry. 



That section of North Alabama which is enclosed in the south- 
ernmost sweep of the Tennessee river, is one of rare loveliness. 
The last spurs of the Alleghanies stand out in contrast with the 
river lowlands, and both, covered with the luxuriant growth of 
the sunny South, conspire to render the landscape pleasing to the 
eye. A little more than a half-century ago, it attracted the atten- 
tion of emigrants, and among others, that of Albert Russel, Sr., 
the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Mr. Russel was 



1861.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 51 



born, it is believed, in Pennsylvania, but, previous to his removal 
to Alabama, he had lived and married in Virginia. There, near 
the town of Leesburg, in Loudon County, in the year 1800, was 
born of his wife Anne, 7ice Hooe, his son, Albert Russel, Jr. 

The family removed first to East Tennessee, and afterwards, to 
an estate in the suburbs of Huntsville, Alabama, still known as 
Eussel's Hill. 

In 1823 the younger Russel graduated at Yale College. He 
then studied medicine at Transylvania University, Kentucky, and 
entered upon the practice of his profession. In 1835 Dr. Russel 
was married to Martha Jane Coxe, daughter of Hopkins Lacy, 
and grand-daughter of William Lacy, of Virginia. The motlier 
of Miss Lacy was an Irish refugee from the neighborhood of 
Dublin; she came to Ainerica as the wife of Dr. William Simp- 
son (who, tradition says, fled for his life from the proscription of 
the English Government), and after his death married Hopkins 
Lacy. 

Dr. Russel, at the time of his marriage, was practicing medi- 
cine at Triana, a flourishing village on the Tennessee river. Here 
on the 2d of March, 1837, was born their son — " a puny babe with 
swarthy skin, sickly and unpromising" — to whom was given the 
family name, Albert. His early years were a constant struggle 
for life; and several successive spells of illness nearly baffled the 
best medical skill and the most judicious nursing. 

In 1840 Dr. Russel removed to Huntsville, where, four years 
after, he died suddenly. Mrs. Russel, who in her bereavement 
had the sympathies of the entire village, soon afterwards retired 
with her children to a small cotton plantation; and Albert, 
fragile boy as he was, began to be looked upon as the head of the 
family. He was at that time self-willed, restive under restraint, 
and of a daring, adventurous disposition ; yet he was sensitive to 
^reproof, and his grief at his mother's displeasure was often pas- 
sionate. Even at this early period, his taste foretokened the law 
as his profession ; the court-room was his favorite resort, and often 
with remarkable accuracy, which showed how keenly attentive he 
had been, he would repeat to his mother the chief points of an 
entire debate. 

When about fourteen, he was placed in the family of Mrs. M. 
P. Rice, a friend of his father's, that he might have the advantages 
of school in Huntsville. The kindness of this lady won his heart, 



52 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[August, 



and in his journal, in 1855, he wrote of her, "A friend when I 
needed one, a good woman, a noble Christian who could forget 
her sorrows to comfort those of another." Here he was brought 
under the personal influence of Bishop Lay, then rector of that 
parish, than whom few ministers have clothed the religion of 
Christ with more attractiveness to the young. With Albert 
EussEL, faith in a Saviour was not a family heritage, neither of 
his parents having been an avowed disciple of Christ ; but the 
early death of the one, and the passionate, lasting grief of the 
other, turned his mind to the subject, and he believed in God. 
From this time his desire to be a Christian seemed sincere; 
and when his death in his country's service made his name the 
frequent theme of conversation, this eulogy was passed upon him 
by lips it would have delighted him most to hear : — '^ Yes, 
Albert was a good boy, and had that rare quality, reverence ; he 
reverenced God, he reverenced his mother, he reverenced his 
superiors." 

After several unsuccessful eiforts to secure an appointment to 
"West Point, it was determined to send Albert to Hobart Col- 
lege, New York ; and he entered the Freshman class of this insti- 
tution in September, 1855. About two years afterwards he was 
called home by the embarrassments of his mother's estate, and 
when these were adjusted, he betook himself to teaching, still 
looking forward to the profession of law. He next returned to 
Huntsville, and entered upon the study of that profession with 
such exclusive devotion as to justify the highest hopes of his 
friends. 

This was at a time when political excitement ran high — just 
before the famous Charleston Convention. From his earliest 
knowledge of the principles that divided the country, Albert 
had been a States' Rights Democrat. The firm with which he was 
reading law was not agreed ; one member espousing the views of 
which Mr. Douglas became the exponent, the other, Mr. E. D. 
Tracy, those of the States' Rights party, in defence of which, as 
Brigadier-General in the Confederate army, he lost his life. Be- 
tween Mr. Tracy and his pupil at law, there sprung up a warm 
friendship, the memory of which is still grateful to those who 
mourn them both. 

Young Russel was now of a character that combined pride 
and sensitiveness, quickness of temper and generosity of soul. 



1861.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 53 



His fondness for his mother was romantic, and in her approval he 
found his highest happiness. Between Mrs. Russel and her son 
there gradually arose a feeling of companionship : she confided in 
his judgment and consulted him about all the important matters 
of the family; and Albert, unconsciously growing to be the 
head of the household, devoted himself with scrupulous care to 
the comfort of his mother. She would wait and watch in the 
evening for him to come from the law-office, and when he came, 
his inclination conspired with his views of duty to interest and 
entertain her, and their conversation would frequently last till 
the small hours of the niglit. 

In September, 1859, he again left home, and went to Virginia 
to prosecute his legal studies. In October he became a student 
at the University and a member of the Law class. He was also 
a member of the Washington Literary Society. Before the end 
of the session he returned home, and was licensed to practise in 
the Chancery Court. 

By this time, however, national affairs began to absorb all other 
interests. Albert Russel, in common with almost all the young 
men of his section, espoused the cause of Mr. Breckenridgo, and 
after his defeat he conscientiously advocated the doctrine of 
Secession. When the first sounds of war were heard, he was one 
of an already organized company, which at once placed itself at 
the disposal of the Governor of Alabama. It was soon ordered 
to Mobile, and thence to Fort Barrancas, near Pensacola, Florida, 
where it was incorporated into the Ttli Alabama Infantry. 

At Fort Barrancas he shared the labor of those who, like 
himself, had volunteered as privates in the service; and the 
sand-bag defences which they threw up there, were no mean 
testimony to the earnestness with which they toiled. Meanwhile, 
the seat of war was transferred to Virginia, and our young soldier, 
.knowino; how hazardous it was for one of his delicate constitution 
and bilious tendency to pass the summer on the coast, sought a 
transfer to the Old Dominion. The application was granted, 
subject to the approval of his company officers ; but these with- 
held their consent, and his object was defeated. 

Very soon disease laid hold upon him, and before the first 
September leaves had fallen, a transfer came unsought. His 
letters home began to grow illegible. He apologized for this at 
first, by referring to his poor accommodations for writing, but he 



54 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. rseptcmber. 

Avas Bot long able to conceal from his friends the sufferings he 
endnred from a felon on one of the bones of hia right hand. His 
nervous system, always delicate, and now dou'.jtless affected by 
exposure in a climate which he had sought to escape, became 
involved, and he was sent to the Marine Hospital, where his 
mother joined him only in time to assure him of her devotion 
before he was seized with delirium. Mr. A. K. Wiggs — let his 
name be recorded, for his fidelity — was detailed from the company 
to attend him, and aid Mrs. Russel, who for six long weeks 
watched by the bedside of the soldier frenzied with pain. But 
human arts all failed to restore to the widowed mother him who 
had been to her both son, and friend and companion. 

On the 26th of August, 1861, Albeet Russel died. On the 
morning of September 1st he was buried by the side of his father, 
in the cemetery at Huntsville. 



WILLIAM LEFTWICII GOGGIN, Jr. 

1st Lieutenant, Company H, lltli Virginia Infantry- 

''With the name of this brave young Virginian are associated,^' 
said one who knew him well, " memories the most dear that love 
could cherish, ambition dream of, or patriotism admire." He was 
born in the town of Liberty, Bedford County, Virginia, July 21, 
1840, and named for his uncle, Hon. William L. Goggin. In 
1849 his parents, Mrs. Susan S. and Hon. J. O. L. Goggin, removed 
to Lynchburg, where William received the preparation needful 
for admission into the Lynchburg College, then a thriving institu- 
tion, located in the suburbs of his adopted home. Here, in 1860, 
he graduated with distinction, and was selected to deliver the 
" Final Public Oration," in which he gave evidence of talent for 
the rostrum. His style, though rhetorical, was simple and cogent, 
and his earnest manner bespoke feeling and conviction. 

In the fall of 1860 William Goggin commenced the study of 
law at the University of Virginia, Avhere he remained until the 
spring, when " hostile feet threatened their invading march 
through his native State," and he with many of his fellow-stu- 
dents hastened to Harper's Ferry. Instead, however, of returning 



1801.] 



THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 55 



to college with his companions when, their purpose accomplished, 
the University companies were disbanded, he went directly home, 
and set about arousing the people to what he considered the duties 
of the hour. A company, — " The Jeif Davis Guards," — composed 
of men from Lynchburg and the vicinity, was soon organised. 
His personal friend, J. Rii^que Hutter, was elected to the Captaincy, 
and himself to the office of 1st Lieutenant, and in this capacity he 
served in the field until a few days before his death. "The 
Guards" were afterwards known officially as Company H of tl'.e 
11th Virginia Infantry, which, with the 1st, 7th and 17th Vir- 
ginia regiments, composed the brigade led by General Longstreet 
into battle on the 18th July, 1861, and known afterwards as 
" Lono;street's Brio-ade." 

In the battle of Bull Run the 11th Virginia had a larger share 
than some partisan writers — self-styled historians — have accorded 
to it, and to its gallant action the results of that day were due in 
no small degree. In the heat of this engagement Lieutenant 
GoGGiN bore himself with marked courage, for ^hich, however, 
when afterwards coiuj^limentcd, he modestly remarked, " I did 
my duty ; nothing more." But while, with true delicacy of feeling, 
he ignored all praise of himself, "no trait in his character was 
more striking than the unselfish magnanimity which constantly re- 
vealed itself, whenever the name of a brave comrade was mentioned 
in his presence." 

The first battle of Manassas occurred on the twenty-first anni- 
versary of his birth. He celebrated the day on the field. A few 
weeks afterwards, a business commission from his company gave 
opportunity for a brief visit to his friends at home — a visit that 
will not soon be forgotten by those of the family circle who 
survive. As soon, however, as his official duties were performed, 
he returned promptly to camp, — hut for the last time. 

In a little while his letters spoke of interrupted health, yet 
without intimating that he was becoming unfit for tlie duties of 
his position. On the 31st of August his family were startled by 
the announcement that he was really ill and might be expected by 
the afternoon train. His appearance, while indicating that he 
was in a very feeble condition, did not seem to warrant serious ap- 
]>rehensions for his recovery; indeed, his friends began at once to 
rejoice in the belief that the atmosphere of home and a mother's 
tender care would soon restore him to his wonted healtli. But 



56 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [September, 

"suddenly, on the fourth day after his arrival, his symptoms as- 
sumed a most alarming and rapid change. Every remedy that 
love could suggest, or medical skill employ, was resorted to for his 
relief; but in vain. He sank steadily from the moment of crisis, 
and suifered much from the acute nature of his disease, until 8 
o'clock, A. M., September 5th, when, in the calm trust he 
had often expressed in the freshness and vigor of health, of ac- 
ceptance with God through the blood of His Son, his brave young 
spirit quitted the shores of time for the unending peace and bliss 
of eternity." 

On the next day his remains were escorted to the Presbyterian 
Cemetery, where, in full view of his beautiful home, they were 
buried with the honors of war by the side of his sister, a lovely 
young girl, over whose grave the grass of the second summer was 
beginning to fall. The following stanzas, written when grief for 
this young man was freshest, are from the pen of " C. J. M. J.," 
whose words have already been frequently quoted : — 

" Rest, soldier, rest ! 
They who resigned thee at tliy country's call, 
To meet her foe, to guard her truth or fall, 
Received thee ouce again — 'twas but to lay 
Thy brave young form in manhood's strength away, 
In earth's dark breast. 



" Here, calmly sleep ! 
No martial sound shall pierce thy death-cold ear, 
No comrade's step or voice awake thee here ; 
But love will o'er thee siied her mournful tears, 
And musing mem'ry through the coming years 
Her vigil keep. 

*' Thou wilt lie down 
With her whose fair young cheek thine own hath pressed, 
As fond arms clasped ye to the same fond breast, — 
The gentle sister by whose loving side 
Thou wand'redst oft in life's bright moi'ning tide, 
Care then unknown. 

" Rest, soldier, rest ! 
The din of war, the batlle-cry is o'er; 
No startling reveille shall wake thee more. 
Nor blast of bugle thy dull car unclose. 
Nor call to arms arouse thy deep repose, 
On earth's calm breast. 

" Thou hast put down 
Thy warrior-emblems. Musket, sword, and shield 
Tliou'lt need again no more in camp or field : 
Immortal laurels deck tliy youthful brow. 
And on thy brave young head Heaven placeth now 
The victor's crown." 



ISgl] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 57 

JOHN A. WASHINGTON, 

Lieutenant-Colonel, and A. D. C. to General R. E. Lee. 

John Augustine Washington was born at "Blakeley," 
Jefferson County, Virginia, on the 3d of May, 1821. 

His father, John Augustine Washington, was. the son of Corbin 
^Washington, who was the son of John Augustine Washington, 
the favorite brother of General George Washington. 

His mother was Miss Jean C. Blackburn, daughter of Major 
R. S. Blackburn, of the United States Army, and grand-daughter 
of Colonel Thomas Blackburn, of the E-evolution. 

At the age of seven years, John Augustine was sent by his 
fatlier to school at Mr. Brent's, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. 
From thence he went successively to Mr. Waort, to Bristol, near 
Philadelphia, and to Mr. Benjamin Hallowell, in Alexandria, 
Virginia. He remained at the latter school till he went to the 
University of Virginia, in 1838. He attended the lectures at 
this institution till 1841, gaining honors in several of its schools. 

Upon leaving the University, Mr. Washington settled at 
Mount Vernon (the former residence and the burial-place of 
General Washington), which had been bequeathed to him as the 
eldest son. In 1843 he married Miss Eleanor Selden, of Loudon 
County, Virginia. 

At Mount Vernon, Mr. Washington led a quiet, farmer's life, 
dispensing that generous, social, and unbounded hospitality for 
which Virginians have been so long noted. All who met him 
were charmed with his pleasing manners, his elegant address, 
and his brilliant conversation. He was in fact a polished gentle- 
man in tlie true sense of the term. His was not the polish so 
frequently seen in men of the world, which covers the outer man 
with a smiling mask, but serves only to conceal a heart cold, 
callous, and selfish. His kindliness of disposition prompted him 
to treat all those with whom he came in contact Avith the same 
consideration, always avoiding any act or expression that would 
tend to wound the feelings of even the humblest. 

Mr. Washington had a cultivated taste for literature, and the 
large library left by General Washington, and added to by Judge 
Washington and himself, enabled hira to indulge his taste to any 



58 TPIE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[September, 



extent. No branch of literature was neglected, and the treasures 
with which he stored his memory, were always at his command. 
This, together with his richness of imagination, made him a 
brilliant conversationalist, pleasing alike to all. 

Mount Vernon, containing, as it did, the tomb of Washington, 
was naturally a place of great interest to all American and European 
travellers ; hence, the mansion was constantly thronged with 
visitors. Many of these were acquaintances of the family, or bore 
letters of introduction to Mr. Washington. The cost of enter- 
taining them, and the constant outlay to keep the many buildings 
of the estate in repair, made the annual expenses far beyond the 
limits of a private income. Those circumstances, and the desire 
to have the mansion preserved as a spot sacred to the memory of 
the Father of his Country, induced Mr. Washington to listen 
favorably to the offer made by the " Mount Vernon Ladies' 
Association " to purchase the place. Accordingly, in the winter 
of 1857-58 the arrangements for purchase were concluded, by 
which he sold to this Association the mansion, together with 200 
acres around it, reserving a quarter of an acre upon which the 
tomb was situated. The price paid was $200,000. 

Frequent offers had been made to Mr. Washington, by 
speculators at the North, to purchase the place, but these he 
invariably refused. Oidy a month or two before the property was 
sold to the Ladies' Association, he refused an offer of $300,000 
for it. 

In I860, Mr. Washington gave possession of the property to 
the Ladies' Association, and removed with his family to "Wave- 
land," an estate which he had purchased in Fauquier County, 
Virginia. There he continued to reside till he entered the Con- 
federate army. 

When the sectional war broke out, he espoused the cause of the 
South with his whole heart and soul, and immediately ofiered his 
services to the Governor of Virginia, Avith the intention of serving 
in the Southern army in any position to which he might be 
assigned. Shortly after General R. E. Lee was assigned to com- 
mand, he offered Mr. Washington the position of aide-de-camp 
on his staff, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He accepted 
the position, and at once joined the army. 

As an evidence of the noble and patriotic spirit by which he 
was actuated, we subjoin extracts of letters, written at this period. 



jg,;i-| THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 59 

to members of his family. From Richmond, May 3cl, 1861, he 
writes to one of his daughters : — 

"I cannot tell yon, dear J , what it cost me to leave you 

all; but I feel, and Avhatevcr the issue may be, I am sure you 
will feel, my dear daughter, that I am performing a sacred duty. 
When yet a boy, I learned at my mother's knee that after my 
duty to God, my first and greatest obligations were to my country ; 
and I then resolved, and it has been the determination of uiy life, 
that when ray country was attacked I M'ould go out to defend her. 
The occasion has arrived to test my principle, and though the 
sacrifice is like the tearing of the very heart-strings, I should be 
recreant to my conviction and undeserving my name, were I to 
shrink from the performance of duty." 

From Staunton, July 30ih, ISGl, he writes: — 

"Every man, woman, and child should now do everything, and 
be willing cheerfully to make any sacrifice that can promote the 
common and holy cause in which we are engaged ; and no effort 
should be relaxed until those Yankee rogues are driven with 
ignominy from the sacred soil of Virginia." 

Under date of August 27th, 1861, he writes from his camp on 
" Valley Mount," in Western Virginia : — 

"If I fall in defence of all I hold dear, and of those principles 
that are and ought to be more valuable to me than life, and they 
can thereby be more thoroughly instilled into Lawrence and 
George [his two sons] and all of you, then indeed I hold that I 
shall not have fallen in vain, but that the sacrifice will have been 
well made; and if my death will engage my children more firmly 
in the love of truth and of their country, and in inextinguishable 
hatred and defiance of the lying and hypocrisy and knavery and 
oppression of the Yankee, then it is well for ,me to die, and the 
sooner such great ends are purchased at so cheap a price, the 
better." 

Again he writes, in the spirit of true Christian resignation to 
tlie will of God :— 

"You must all keep in good heart and cheerful, and not be 
uneasy at my position. There is One Avho can and will dispose 
of me as it is best, and when you remember me before Him, pray 
that I may never fail to perform my duty." 

In the last letter of his which we shall give, there breathes 
forth the purest spirit of patriotism that can animate the breast 
of man : — 



60 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[Seotember, 



"While I think and hope that we shall be successful, yet, of 
course, there is no telling who will fall in the efforts we are about 
making. I am just as likely to be one of them, as any one else; 
and I can only say that if God so wills it, I hope I am ready to 
lay down my life and to sacrifice all I have in the just and sacred 
cause in which I am embarked. I know I am perfectly "willing, 
if need be, to die for this cause, and sooner than see it fail I had 
rather that myself and children and all I hold, were swept from 
existence. For myself I have no fear ; for should my life be 
lost, it is only anticipating by a few years what must happen at 
any rate. The whole matter is in the hands of God, who will do 
with me as seems best to Him." 

Colonel Washington's military career was brief. Hardly 
had he taken his sword in hand to defend the sacred rio-hts of his 
country, when he sealed with his blood his devotion to her cause. 
He was killed on the 13th of September, 1861, Avhile on duty 
with General Lee in Western Virginia. The full particulars of 
his death are thus related by General W. H. F. Lee, who was by 
his side when he fell : — 

^ Colonel Washington was with my command on a scout near 
the enemy in Western Virginia, during the advance of Loring's 
army from its position on Cheat Mountain. Colonel Wash- 
ington had long been anxious to accompany me in some of 
our expeditions. On this occasion he brought me orders from 
headquarters, and his face beamed with delight as he told 
me that he was to accompany us. Our road, on this occa- 
sion, was an exceedingly rough one, even for that mountainous 
and rugged country. We had to lead our horses up and down 
the mountains. Notwithstanding the difficulties of the march, 
Colonel Washington seemed to enjoy it, aud frequently 
expressed himself as delighted. It was with difficulty that I 
could restrain him. In one skirmish with the enemy's cavalry 
he charged with the leading files. 

" We had come within sight of the enemy's camp, and I gave 
the order to return. ' Oh no,' said Washington, ' let us ride 
down and capture that fellow on the gray horse.' After some 
hesitation I assented, and leaving our main force, we took only 
two men and proceeded to capture the fellow on the gray horse. 
Our road lay through a narrow defile in the mountain, some half 
mile in length, at the end of which the fellow on the gray horse was 



1801.] 



THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 61 



awaiting very quietly our approach. "We had hardly proceeded 
three hundred yards, when fire Avas opened on us from an ambus- 
cade in the side of the mountain. At the first volley Colonel 
Washington fell from his horse, pierced with balls; myself and 
escort wheeled and spurred back, running the gauntlet from their 
musketry. If I recollect aright, there was a battalion of infantry 
in ambuscade, and this fellow on the gray horse was placed in 
position to entice us into the little trap which tliey had set for us. 
How we escaped, is one of the many mysteries of the v/ar. My 
horse was shot in three or four places, the other two killed. 
Colonel Washington's horse came out with us, bringing his 
sword, which was tied to the saddle. His body was sent to Gen- 
eral Lee on the following day, under a flag of truce, and sent by 
General Lee to his family." 

Thus fell Colonel John Augustine Washington, an early 
victim in that deadly struggle in which so many noble lives were 
lost. It is not groundless conjecture, when we say that, if he had 
lived, he would have earned and honored the highest rank in the 
gift of his country. His courage, his knowledge of men, his reso- 
lution, his inflexibility of purpose, and the lofty ambition with 
which he was inspired, all these were of too high a tyjie for him 
to have come through such a war, without enrolling his name 
among the noblest which its annals contain. 

In private life he shone with all the virtues which should 
characterise the husband, father, son, and brother. In his friend- 
ship he never faltered, and his noble, generous heart prompted 
him to seek out and aid the distressed. To a stranger this 
language may seem mere jmnegyric; by those who knew him, it 
will be thought to fall far short of describing the actual virtues 
of the man. 



LAWRENCE LEE GRIGGS BERRY. 

Private, Company G, 2d Virginia Infantry. 

The ancestors of Laavrence Berry, on both sides, were natives 
of the State of Virginia from its earliest settlement as a colony. 
His father, Rev. Robert Taylor Berry, was the son of Lawrence 



62 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 



[September, 



Berry ami Catharine Hodge, of Berry Plains, King George County; 
his mother, Annie Frame Griggs, the daughter of Dr. Lee Griggs 
and Eliza Frame, of Charlestown, Jefferson County, where he M-as 
born, September 14, 1839. 

The first ten years of his life were spent in Georgetown, D. C, 
during which time Mr. Berry was pastor of the Bridge Street 
(Presbyterian) Church of that city. He was a quiet, thoughtful, 
reserved child, but with a quick and passionate temper, which, 
however, he afterwards learned by severe discipline to control. 
When his father removed to Martinsburg, Virginia, Lawrence^ 
accompanied him, and there, iu the town Academy, laid the foun- 
dation of a classical education. From Martinsburg he was trans- 
ferred to the flourishing school of Rev. Dr. William H. Foote, 
in Romney, where he prosecuted his linguistic studies, preparatory 
to college. In 1857, he entered the University of Virginia. 
Here he remained two sessions, and graduated in Political 
Economy and Moral Philosophy. After leaving the University, 
he engaged in teaching, proposing meanwhile to qualify himself 
for the practice of law as a profession. Thus he spent one year 
at Charlestown, after which he was employed by his former pre- 
ceptor. Dr. Foote, as assistant in his Academy at Romney. 

In the spring of 1861, when the war became imminent, Law- 
rence Berry began to consider seriously the political issues 
involved. His judgment was clear and mature for one of his age, 
and the decision of character which marked his childhood and 
youth had kept pace with his years. Having arrived at the 
painful conclusion that there was but one course which a Vir- 
ginian could honorably pursue, he left the shades of the Academy, 
and under a stern sense of duty, embraced the first opj)ortunity 
to volunteer in the Southern army. 

Accordingly, he enrolled himself, along with his brother, a 
youth of only sixteen, in Company G, 2d Virginia Infantry. 
Immediately after his enlistment, he learned something of the 
active service of a soldier, for he was with General Johnston when 
he faced, and manceuvred against, General Patterson at Bunker 
Hill; and under his standards he made the forced march when 
that General, eluding his enemy in the Valley, hastened through 
Ashby's Gap to Piedmont Station, in order to join Beauregard at 
Manassas on the 20th July. 

The 2d Virginia belonged to Jackson's Brigade, whose conduct 



1861.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 63 

on the bloody plains of Manassas was immortalized by the words 
of the chivalric Bee, as he rallied the battle-worn remnants of his 
own brigade : — " See Jackson'' s men ; they stand like a stone tvall ! " 
More fortunate tlian many of his comrades, young Berry passed 
unhurt through the ordeal of the 21st July. 

During the period of quiet that succeeded, he remained with 
his regiment, faithfully and patiently performing the duties of the 
camp. When questioned by his father at this time, in regard to 
fthe severity of the soldier's life as compared with that of the 
student, he readily admitted that his powers of endurance were 
sorely tried, but declared, at the same time, that he did not regret 
the step he had taken, and that under like circumstances he would 
pursue the same course. 

In the month of September, the Army of Northern Virginia 
was advanced to Fairfax Court-House, and General Johnston held 
as outposts, Avith regimental pickets. Fall's Church, Munson's and 
INIason's Hills, the latter being in sight of the Federal Capitol. 
On the 20th instant, the 2d Virginia was ordered to this duty at 
Munson's Hill, and Company G was sent to relieve that of 
Captain Nadenbousch. The following extract from a letter, written 
by the Captain of Company G to the Rev. Mr. Berry, under date 
September 26, 18G1, explains the rest: — "I was informed by 
Captain Nadenbousch," wrote Captain Edwin L. Moore, " that 
certain of the picket-posts on his line were very dangerous on 
account of their close proximity to the enemy's line, as well as on 
account of the exposed position of our sentinels, and the advantage 
of shelter, which the enemy had in some thick pines by which 
they could approach very close to us without being seen. I was 
cautioned to select my most determined and self-possessed men for a 
post designated by the number 12. I did so, and among those 
selected was your son, whose coolness and determination on other 
occasions had attracted my notice. The pickets were posted after 
night, and being totally unacquainted with the ground to be de- 
fended, and the approaches to it, were of course at a great disad- 
vantage in case the enemy should attack. Unfortunately they did 
attack the very post at which your son was stationed. Favored 
by the nature of the ground, they were able to make a point 
within twenty paces of the post, entirely unobserved by my men. 
Having reached this point, some fifty or sixty of the enemy made 
a sudden sally between daybreak and sunrise, firing a volley at 



64 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[October, 



my men. A shot from this volley penetrated your son's breast; 
but he, though fatally wounded, discharged his musket, and was 
the last to leave the post, though it was attacked by an over- 
whelming force — there being only five or six to defend it. He 
retreated some seventy-five yards, when, overcome by exhaustion 
from loss of blood, he fell, and was found dead, with his arms by 
his side, about twenty minutes after, by a reserve force sent out to 
beat back the enemy and regain the posts. Such are the facts. 
... In a worldly point of view, your son's deatli is surrounded 
by every circumstance that honors a soldier's end. Pie was at the 
post of danger; he fell in the discharge of his duty." 

Could any soldier wish a more honorable epitaph than the 
words of this closing sentence? If anything is wanting, it is 
supplied by the writer of his obituary, which was published in 
the Central Pr^esbyterian, June 26, 1861 : — " From his childhood 
he had been carefully trained in the nurture and admonition of 
the Lord, and in the faith and hope of the Christian he had livv?d 
an unspotted life. By his reverence for God and His law, he gave 
pleasing evidence, the ground of a cheering hope, that he was 
wrought upon by a higher than any earthly power." 



JAMES CHALMERS, 

Sergeant, Company B, 2d Virginia Cavalry, 

James Chalmers was the son of David Chalmers, of Halifax 
County. He was born at Woodlawn, the residence of his grand- 
father, Colonel Coleman, on the 21st of September, 1829. The 
scope of this memoir will not allow a detailed account of his early 
life. Suffice it to say, his boyhood was elegantly moulded by the 
cultivated society, the religious associations, and the refined taste 
for which his father's house was distinguished. As soon as he 
was old enough to leave home, he was sent to an Episcopal school 
at Hagerstown, in Maryland, and while there, in liis sixteenth 
year, was confirmed by Bishop Whittingham, and became an 
active member of the Church of his forefathers. 

From this primary school he went to Chapel Hill College, in 
North Carolina, where several years were spent in laborious and 



Ig6l_-| THE UlflYEESITY MEMOEIAL, 65 

successful study. Upon closing with distinction his course at 
Chapel Hill, he determined to devote himself to the study of the 
law, for the practice of which his high literary culture, his elegant 
taste, and his great moral worth eminently fitted him. In further- 
ance of this end, in October, 1849, he matriculated in tlie Univer- 
sity of Virginia, where he remained two years, studying with 
industry and entliusiasm in additioil to his professional course, 
such subjects of general education as are deemed a part of the 
curriculum of a well-read lawyer. 

During the last year of his stay at the University, the writer of 
this sketch first formed his acquaintance, and commenced a friend- 
ship which, after ripening through ten yeai\s of intimate associa- 
tion in college,- in court, and in camp, ended only with his life. 
At the University young Chalmees most conscientiously dis- 
charged the Christian vows he had assumed in his boyhood, and 
his holy life and conversation, coupled with his zealous labor in 
his Master's cause, made him a most useful and efficient member 
of the student society around him. 

Immediately upon leaving the University he opened an office 
and commenced the practice of his profession in Lynchburg. 
Shortly after reaching Lynchburg he formed a partnership with 
the late N. H. Campbell, who was then in full practice, and the 
new firm at once took a leading position at the bar. On the 8th 
of December, 1852, he was married to Fannie M. Saunders, the 
second daughter of Dr. James Saunders, a prominent and wealthy 
tobacconist of Lynchburg. With her his domestic life was one of 
unalloyed hapjiiness, and she who knew him best, has mourned for 
him with a depth of faithful sorrow seldom to be seen. 

In January, 1853, Dr. Saunders found it necessary to have 
some one to whom he could confide the joint. management of his 
large and varied business. This post he tendered to Mr. Chal- 
'MERS, making the offer so advantageous as to induce him to aban- 
don Jiis profession. Into his new avocation Mr. Chalmees 
carried the same gentleness, purity, and rectitude which had 
marked his course in his former life, and the influence of his 
presence in the business circle in which he moved was ])otent for 
good. So great was the confidence of the community in his worth, 
that, although a newcomer comparatively, he was soon called 
upon to discharge many of those duties which society demands of 
those of its members in whom it trusts. Conspicuous among these 
5 



66 THE UNIYEESITY MEMORIAL, 



[October, 



was the office of a member of the Hustings Court, a position to 
which he was elected immediately after leaving the bar, and lield 
with great satisfaction to the lawyers and the people until his 
death. 

Although in no respect a politician, Mr. Chalmees was an 
earnest and decided AVhig, and was much opposed to the course of 
those States which first seceded from the Union ; but as soon as war 
became a necessity, like all other true men he did not doubt as to 
■where his allegiance was due, and was one of the first to place his 
name on the list of the members of a cavalry company, whose 
services were to be tendered the Governor of the State for imme- 
diate duty in the field. This act was not with him one of mere 
impulse, nor from a desire for military glory ; for though brave, 
morally and physically, to the fullest scope of that word, he had no 
taste for the scenes, the duties, or the life of a soldier, and it re- 
quired no common fortitude for him to tear himself away from the 
charms of his domestic circle and the peaceful pursuits of his cul- 
tivated mind, to enter as a private in the ranks. So great was his 
personal popularity that, when his company was reorganized on a 
" war footing," he would have been made one of its commissioned 
officers, had he not insisted upon his own unfitness for the post, and 
urged successfully the claims of another person for the honor, ac- 
cepting for himself only a position as a non-commissioned officer. 

His company was one of the first mustered into the service of 
the State, and was early ordered to the seat of war. We pass 
over the parting scenes : but few of those, whose hearts were 
wrung with anguish that beautiful May morning, will forget their 
sensations as the long line of bold troopers forded the placid 
James and disappeared on the heights beyond. Upon the bank 
of that river our hero bade farewell to his wife and little ones, 
who crowded to the very water's edge to say the last sad adieu ; 
then, dashing the gathering tear from his manly eye, he threw his 
lithe and graceful form into the saddle of his beautiful bay 
charger, took his place in the ranks, crossed the river, and was 
gone from his home and his loved ones to return no more ali^e. 

Space will not allow a detailed account of his life as a soldier. 
It is enough to say, he was everytliing which is included in the 
comprehensive term, so often used by General Lee as a meed of 
])raise, "a cheerful soldier." Every duty, however irksome, 
however menial, however dangerous, was willingly done ; no 



1861] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 67 

word of complaint escaped his lips, aud yet he was ever ready 
^v'ith a word of apology for those who, less considerate, would 
often bitterly bemoan the fate which threw upon them unpleasant 
tasks. The company, upon reaching Manassas, was assigned to 
the 2d Virginia Regiment of Cavalry, then being organized under 
Oolonel Radford, and took its position as the second, or Company 
B, in that regiment. He was in several skirmishes prior to the 
battle of Manassas, including one at Vienna, where tlie Federals 
under General Schenck were routed, and he displayed himself 
every inch a soldier in each trial of his mettle. At the battle of 
Manassas his conduct especially attracted the commendation of his 
commanding officers. Foremost in the gallant charge made that 
day by his regiment upon the breaking foe, he was the first, when 
pursuit was over, to minister to the suffering of the wounded, 
whether dressed in gray or blue. While more than one felt that 
day the power of his bold arm, there Avere many that night who 
for a cup of cold water, a word of kind encouragement, or a prayer 
for their parting spirit, had cause to call him blessed. 

After this great battle, Company B was sent to the front on 
picket and vidette duty, camping at various times at Centreville, 
Falls Church, Annandale, and Fairfax C. H. Here the service 
■of the cavalry was exciting and dangerous, the skirmish line 
under General Stuart running through Munson's and Mason's 
Hills, and in sight of the dome of the Capitol. This life 
Chalmers seemed to enjoy very much, and the more dangerous 
the service the more it attracted him. On Saturday, the 28th of 
September, the company had been on laborious duty all day, 
owing to some threatened movement of the enemy, and did not 
return to camp at Fairfax C. H. until after dark. Scarcely had 
the men gone to rest before General Longstreet sent an order to 
the Captain (Charles M. Blackford), to detail two intelligent and 
ireliable men to go with some important messages to the outposts. 
Chalmers was one of those on whom the lot fell. Knowing him 
to be somewhat delicate, his captain offered to relieve him; but 
the offer was decliner], on the ground that it might be considered 
an act of partiality, and give cause of complaint in tlie company. 
The following extract from a letter, written by Captain Blackford 
a day or two after Chalmers was ordered on this duty, describes 
the result, and as it is a cotemporatieous account, will be interest- 
ing. The letter is dated " Fairfax Court-House, September 30, 



68 THE ITNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [October, 

1861, Monday/' and says: — "Saturday night, about 3 o'clock, I 
Avas startled by the intelligence tiiat Chalmers was shot and 
badly wounded, down oh the outside line of pickets. You may 
well imagine the news sent a pang to my heart. It turned out 
that he had been shot while riding between the pickets at Annan- 
dale, and when about three miles to the right of that point. He wa& 
fired upon, Avithout being halted, and without notice, by two guns, 
in whose hands has never yet been discovered. We are unable to 
say whether he fell a victim to the enemy or to the criminal negli- 
gence of our own men. Be this as it may, he fell in discharge of 
dangerous service, and in full discharge of his duty. The ball 
entered his left arm, breaking, or rather crushing both bones, and 
then passing into the stomach. He rode back some two miles to 
Annandale before dismounting;. From Annandale he was re- 
moved first to a tavern about four miles from this place, and on 
yesterday evening was brought up here, and is now quite comfort- 
ably quartered in Mr. Thomas's law-office. His arm was ampu- 
tated yesterday evening just below the elbow. He bore the 
operation, as he has all the intense pain he has suffered, with 
manly, Christian fortitude ; never complaining, but expressing the 
utmost gratitude for the least kindness. What direction the ball 
took after passing through his arm has not been ascertained, but. 
the surgeons are inclined to the opinion that it did not enter the 
cavity of the stomach, or otherwise injure any vital organ." The 
doctors were wrong in their supposition : the ball entered the 
cavity of the stomach, and inflicted such an injury that peritonitis 
ensued, and he died peacefully and calmly at sunrise on Tuesday 
morning, October 1st. His remains were carried to Lynchburg 
for interment, and were followed to the grave by a great concourse 
of citizens, among whom his death had created a most profound 
sensation. Resolutions of respect and condolence were adopted 
by his Company, the Court, the Masons, and other organizations 
to which he belonged. 

We think this sketch can best be closed by inserting at large 
an obituary notice of Mr. Chalmers prepared and published at 
the time by his Company commander, whose long and intimate 
association with him gives greater force to what he says in regard 
to his character. It reads as follows : — 

"A formal announcement Avas made some days since, that 
James Chalmers, a member of the cavalry company from 



jgoi;] THE UNIA^EKSITY MEMOEIAL. 69 

Lynchburg, died at Fairfax C. H., of wounds received two days 
before, while in discharge of his duty on the extreme outposts of 
the Army of Northern Virginia. It is due to the public and to 
his family that further notice should be taken of his fall. The 
details of such characters form the unwritten annals of this war, 
and should be garnered up as its riciiest glories. The General 
who amidst its pomp and circumstance, marches at the head of 
conquering legions, sacrifices nothing, but gains everything. 
Chalmers, a man of peace by profession, in obedience to his sense 
of duty left his loved home, his v/ife, and his little ones, at a time 
when his business especially demanded his personal attention, 
enlisted as a private soldier, and was among the first who marched 
to repel the invader from our soil. To such men is clue the real 
merit of the army, and most of the praise lavished upon its 
leaders. To portray such a character as that of our lost friend is 
very difficult, for its counterpart is seldom met in real life. He 
had been trained amidst the most polished Virginian society, had 
been highly educated at Chapel Hill and the University, and had 
studied the profession best calculated for intellectual culture. All 
of these advantages he had improved to their utmost, and, as a 
consequence, his manners were a grace to any society he charmed 
with his presence, wearing the same gentle ease around the camp- 
fire and in the drawing-room. His mind was stored with scientific 
and classic lore, and the rich sediment which the tide of literature 
had left upon his mind, was the fruitful soil whence sprung the 
choice products of his tongue and pen. He was at once erudite 
and accomplished, following wath earnest zeal the teachings of 
Bacon or Butler, and yet an amateur in music and a critic in 
poetry. Well versed in the prosy philosophy of the past, he was 
perfectly conversant with the lightest literature of the present. 
Such are some ot the characteristics of his mind. .To trace the 
, proportions of his great heart is a more difficult task. Only 
those who were so fortunate as to be intimately associated with 
him, can really appreciate its depth. Any description must fail 
to do. it justice, for want of words apt for the subject. Were an 
endeavor made to pick out any one ^sjjarkling segment of the 
wondrous whole,' his friends would with great unanimity point 
to the perfect unselfishness of his nature — the necessary basis of 
all excellence of character. He was unselfish almost to a fault, 
placing others and others' wants in the front, and himself and his 



70 THE UNIVEESITY i\IEMOPvIAL. [Octc. cr, 

own wants always in tlie background, and thus, not unfrequently, 
his interests suffered and injustice was doi*e him. For this, 
h.owever, he seemed to be compensated in tlie actual pleasure he 
enjoyed in seeing other people satisfied and happy. To make 
those around him happy was one of the aims of his life. It is 
needless to say that his forgetfulness of self secured him the h)ve 
of all who knew him, grappling him to their hearts with liooks 
of steel. His purity was another marked characteristic; in 
thought, in word and in action, so pure that, were no otlicr eicraent 
of character known, we should feel assured he lias reaped the 
reward held out to the pure in lieart, of seeing God. A\ith this 
was entwined as a twin virtue, the most feminine gentleness. It 
was a beautiful sigh.t, to see his inanly form bent over some s'ck 
comrade, administering both spiritual and temporal comforts with 
a voice and touch a woman might envy ; and yet from such scenes 
he turned to the sterner duties of war with tlie heart and hand of 
a true soldier. A woman in purity and gentleness, a child in in- 
nocence, he was yet the brave man, fearing nothing but his God, 
dreading nothing but Heaven's frown. He merited the praise of 
the heathen poet as 

Justuui et tenacem propositi vinim, 

and yet possessed all the higher attributes of a Christian warrior, 
with hand on hilt and eye on Heaven, fighting at once under 
the banner of his country and the cross o^his Saviour. 

" He had been for many years a most consistent member of the 
Episcopal Church, and he carried his piety with him into every 
relation of life. At home he was a working Christian ; around 
the fireside, in the Sunday School, or in the hut of the jioor, he 
ever did his duty as a faithful worker in God's cause. In camp 
his example and precept were most potent for good, and none of 
these who enjoyed tlie privilege of nightly kneeling beside him 
in prayer, will soon forget the earnest appeals that arose from his 
tent to the Throne of Grace. Upon his deathbed, he drew his 
Captain to him, and in whispered accents sent his love to the mem- 
bers of his company, and an earnest appeal to them to put their 
trust in that Saviour who enabled him joyfully to welcome death 
as a passport to a land of bliss. 

" As an instance of his fearless sense of duty, one example out of 
many may be mentioned : — Some few days before he was shot he 



,^^, T TiiS UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 71 

was stationed at Mason's Hill, one of the outposts nearest the 
enemy, when an alarm was given that the Federal army was 
niakinir a general advance. The officer commandino; the forces at 
tiuit hill, through some misapprehension of orders, withdrew his 
command and abandoned the post. Chalmees was confident 
that some mistake had occurred, and as his own orders from Gen. 
Longstreet were to stay, he determined to remain until time had 
been given for the error to be corrected ; and with three other men, 
whom he posted so as to conceal the true state of affairs, held the 
hill three hours, until the troops returned, though the enemy, 
only a few hundred yards oif, in full view, were drawn up in line 

of battle." 

"Such a man was Chalmees. Space is not allowed, or fuller 
justice could be done his memory. Would that we had some con- 
solation to oifer the stricken hearts he left behind hi in ! Except in 
the belief that God disposes all things for the best, there is no 
balm for the heart that bleeds for the loss of such a husband, 
such a father, such a brother, such a son. It is, however, an in- 
expressible comfort to know that he has "fought his last battle," 
and has gone to that long home " where the wicked cease from 
troubling and the weary are at rest." His reward, as a faithful 
soldier of his country, will be meted to him by a grateful posterity. 
As a soldier of the Cross, he now enjoys the perpetual bliss 
promised the good and faithful, and, in the very presence of God, 
wears the victor's crown of immortal glory." 



De. EDWIN S. BUIST, 

Assistant Surgeon, 9th South CaroUna Infantry. 

Dr. Edwin Sommees Bulst was the son of Rev. E. T, Buist, 
D. D., for many years pastor of the Presbyterian Church in, 
Greenville, South Carolina. He was born March 31, 1837. 

After the usual preliminary education, he entered the University 
of Virginia as a student, in October, 1855. In personal appearance 
he was then tall, rather slight, and handsome. His mind belonged 
to that type which regards the concrete rather than the abstract, 
and, consequently, he was remarkable for his good practical 
judgment. 



72 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [November 

At the University — which institution he attended two sessions 
— he devoted himself chiefly to the study of , the sciences, as 
preparatory to the profession of INIedicine. In tlie autumn of 
1857 he repaired to the University of New York and matriculated 
in the Medical Department, at the same time placing himself 
under the private tuition of Dr. (now Prof) T. G. Tliomas, 
with whom he became a favorite pupil. In the spring of 1859 
he was graduated at this institution ; and after spending some 
months in the city, he returned to his liome in South Carolina. 
In the early part of the following year, he made a tour of the 
Southwestern States, the result of which Avas a determination to 
settle in Arkansas. This plan was not, however, carried into 
immediate effect, and he commenced the practice of Medicine in 
Charleston in the winter of 1860-61. Here the commencement 
of hostilities found hioi. 

Even when the enthusiasm of the Carolinians was highest, 
Dr. BuiST did not sympathize with it. Again and again he ex- 
pressed himself as opposed to the disruption of the Government, 
declaring that, though he would be prepared to stand by the 
fortunes of his State and his native South, he could not endorse 
the wisdom of the secession mov^ement. Yet, even among the 
first did he enter the military service of his country, and was one 
of the earliest sacrifices in the great struggle that followed. 

During the latter part of the summer of 1861, he was ordered 
to Hilton Head Island as Assistant-Surgeon to the 9th South 
Carolina Infantry and Colonel Wagner's battalion of heavj- 
artillery. In this capacity he was serving on the 7th of November 
following, when an attack -was made upon Fort AValker by the 
Federal fleet under Captain Dnpont, Flag-Officer of the South 
Atlantic Blockading Squadron. During the bombardment. Dr. 
BuiST was engaged with the wounded in one of the covered pas- 
sages of the fort, and while thus occupied, he M-as killed by the 
crushing in of the superstructure under the heavy fire of the 
gunboats. 

In about five hours Fort Walker surrendered, and the body oi 
Dr. BuLST Mas taken in charge by his former friend, Dr. Edward 
Dalton, of New T"ork, then one of the surgeons with the fleet, 
and by Dr. George Cooper, medical director of Sherman's corps. 
Through their kindness it M'as decently interre.1, and some ten 
days afterwards, restored under flag of truce to his friends. It 





^!^^ 



^pSC^ 



ISCl.j 



THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 73 



was said by these officers that, iu removing the debris from the 
fortification, his body was found beneath a mass of sand and 
timber, in the attitude of ligating the temporal artery of a 
soldier, and still grasping the tenaculum in his hand. 

Thus, while the star of the Confederacy was in the ascendant, 
and gave promise of a zenith glory, Edwin Buist yielded up his 
life — happy in filling so soon, in that he was spared the suflPering 
and humiliation that awaited his survivors: happier still in 
being prepared, through Christ, for his sudden translation. 



JOSEPH E. COX, M. A. 

Lieutenant, Manchester ArtiUerj^. 

Joseph Edwin Cox was born September 27, 1837, at Clover 
Hill, Chesterfield County, A^irginia. His father. Judge James H. 
Cox, a native of the same county, graduated with distinction at 
Hampden Sidney College, and then took up the study of law. 
When about to enter upon the practice of his profession, he was 
elected President of the Academy of Tallahassee, and filled that 
office for three years. Returning then to Chesterfield, he identi- 
fied himself with the interests of the people, among whom he has 
enjoyed an enviable popularity. For many years he served in 
each House of the General Assembly of Virginia, and while in 
the Senate was made Speaker of that body. He represented his 
county in the Constitutional Convention of 1850, and in that of 
1861. Upon the adoption of the new constitution, and the reor- 
ganization of the judiciary, he was elected Judg,e for Chesterfield 
County by the General Assembly. 

JosFPH, the second son of Judge Cox, was distinguished as a 
child for his love of books, and at the age of ten his powers of 
acquisition had placed him ahead of schoolmates of maturer years. 
When nearly fourteen he was sent to the school of Mr, William 
R. Dunn, of Amelia County, and remained there two years, 
gaining for himself the name of a diligent and successful student. 
In October, 1853, he entered the University of Virginia, and at 
the close of the session he received diplomas in the Latin, Spanish, 
and Anglo-Saxon languages. The next year he was prevented by 



74 THE UNIVERSITY ]\IEMOEIAL. 



[DecemlH'i-, 



sickness from standing any of the final examinations. On the 
29th of July, 1858, however — just two montlis before he attained 
his majority — he Avas graduated IMaster of Arts, and read by ap- 
pointment of the Faculty, his Degree-Essay on " The Mission of 
Educated 3Ien.'' 

The following year he returned to the University, and began 
the study of law as a profession. The success of Joseph Cox 
in achieving the highest academic honor of his alma mater, is 
sufficient testimony to his intellectual ability. Concerning his 
private character while a student, the writer, ^vho Avas then his 
classmate and intimate friend, could say much. In gentleness 
and softness of manner he was more like a woman than a man ; 
but in devotion to principle, and in sternness of purpose, he was 
abundantly masculine. He had a high appreciation of wit and 
humor in others, and was himself somewhat gifted in repartee; 
withal, there was a genial playfulness of spirit, which constantly 
tempted him to practical jokes,and yet contributed to his popularity. 
He made no profession of Christianity, but his moral character 
was without reproach. Thus, not only for his pleasing address 
and social disposition, but for his integrity of life and sterling in- 
tellectual worth, he was held in high esteem by a wide circle of 
acquaintances. But those who knew him intimately, entertained 
for him a much tenderer feeling, and to-day he is mourned by 
many who were proud to count him among their closest friends. 

In after-life Joe Cox was marked by the same traits — the soft 
graces of a woman, the hardy virtues of a true man. One who 
knew him thoroughly, and watched his brief course with the most 
earnest solicitude, writes of him thus : — " I dwell upon each point 
of his cluu'actcr, and try to recall all the changes wrought by time 
and circumstances, and, at the end of such reflections, I always 
decide that he was less subject to change from boyhood to manhood 
than any person I ever knew." 

He was, while at the University, a member of the Jefferson 
Society ; in 1857 he held in it the office of President, and in 1859 
lie served on its behalf as Magazine editor. 

In the summer of 1859 he located in Manchester, Virginia, 
and became a candidate for the practice of law. A graceful and 
easy writer, and a fluent speakei', with a Avell-trained and well- 
stored mind, he at once took high rank among his brethren at the 
bar ; and it is no mean testimony to his ability, that in less than 



isci.] THE VNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL, 75 

two years ho had secured an excellent practice. This, liowever, 
v.-as not surprising to those who knew him ; for they believed that 
still greater successes Averc within his easy grasp. And in keeping 
with the expectation of his friends was the opinion exprcr^sed hv 
one of the first legal authorities in that section of Virginia, that 
he would attain the very highest position in the reach of his pro- 
fession. Such was the bright prospect blasted by the Mar. 

In the matter of politics, Joe Cox was a States' Rights man 
from education and from principle; yet he was 0])posed to seces- 
sion, and especially to separate State action. Still, as soon as Vir- 
ginia had taken position in regard to this question, he felt that his 
first allegiance was due to her. In the spring of 1861 he joined the 
" Manchester Artillery," which was then forming, and was elected 
one of its Lieutenants. But his military career was very brief. 
The Manchester Artillery, Captain Weisiger, w^as ordered to duty 
at Norfolk, and took part in the bombardment of Sewell's Point. 
Tliis battle, though bloodless, was fatal to Lieutenant Cox ; the 
night march from Norfolk to the Point developed in him a violent 
attack of intermittent fever, the result, doubtless, of previous ex- 
posure in a damp and bilious climate. As soon as he was partially 
recovered, he was removed to Chesterfield, where, under the 
patient ministry of his family, he was after a wliile relieved of 
the fever. But like the arrow that leaves the poison when the 
shaft is withdrawn, so this insidious disease left its victim with 
symptoms of })ulmonary consumption. 

It was in June that he had been brought home. When the 
first battle of Manassas was fought, July 21, he was still an 
invalid, and must have had some presentiment that he could not 
live to take any active part in the Mar. In a conversation with 
his sister, a few days after that first great Confederate victory, he 
remarked with much earnestness of manner that he regretted with 
all his heart he had not been engaged in that battle. May it not 
l)e that he felt his life was already a sacrifice to the war, and that 
he preferred to yield it up at once in battle, rather than suffer the 
slow progress of an incurable disease ? 

In the latter part of August, in spite of repeated remonstrances, 
he returned to service with his company. In October his family 
})aid a visit to his camp ; he chanced to be the officer of the day, 
and met them in full uniform and, apparently, in excellent health. 
But the bright eye and rosy cheek were soon betrayed by the fie- 



76 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[December, 



quent cough. His father at once procured a furlough for him 
and took him home again, where after a few weeks he fell into a 
rapid decline. 

During the sad days that followed, he continued to illustrate 
those graces which had ornamented his childhood and adorned his 
character as a man. He was fully aware of his condition, and 
knew that ere long he must die. To him, doubtless, as to others, 
death seemed, from a human standpoint, to be coming either too 
soon or too late. In the race for academic honors he had been 
successful in a degree to which few attain ; in forensic contests also, 
he had been distinguished beyond his years ; and now, when tiie 
highest political interests of the country were to be decided by the 
sword, and he had just girded himself for the defence of his native 
Virginia, he was drooping to the grave ere he could strike for his 
home ! Why came it not sooner — anticipating liis laborious pre- 
parations for life, and the honors which he might be loth to lay 
down ? Or, why waited it not until the flo\ver of his age was past, 
and the fruit of his labors enjoyed ? 

So, perhaps, reasoned his friends ; so, perhaps, he, at first. Per- 
haps both he and they murmured too; they, under their weight of 
grief, he, in the flush of disappointment. But, if so, both reason- 
ings and murmurings were silently answered by the gift of a new 
and crowning grace, if indeed it were a new grace, to trust calmly 
and hopefully in the Saviour of men. It might be inferred that 
a man of his type would not be wdiolly indiiferent to the subject 
of religion; his journal, written while he was in perfect health, 
shows that he had given much earnest consideration to it. During 
the slow progress of his sickness, when there was much leisure for 
reflection, these views assumed symmetrical form; and leaning, in 
his weakness, upon the strong arm of God, he put on the "armor 
of righteousness." Thus was he equipped for a nobler fight 
than that from mIucIi he had been so recently retired. 

Those qualities which had heretofore commended him to the 
esteem and affection of others, were sublimated by the humility of 
the Christian. Always gentle, polite, unselfish, he was so still, 
with even a quiet cheerfulness. And when, the crisis drawing 
near, his suiferings became both acute and continued, they pro- 
voked no murmur from the invalid. Often at the hour of retiring, 
he would summon the family to his bed-side, bid them good- 
night, and beg them to retire, that they might not witness the 
pain they could not relieve. 



1^61] THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 77 

The Christmas of 1861 was a sad one at Clover Hill. No 
sounds of merriment were heard, no joyous faces seen. The 
shadows that afterwards grew so long, and enveloped the whole 
country, were then first creeping about that house. The oil of an 
honored lamp was well-nigh spent; the light of a dear life was 
flickering fitfully, and tearful eyes were watching its waning power. 

On the evening of December 26, at ten minutes before two 
o'clock, Joseph Edm^n Cox died, "in full faith in the Christian 
religion, and confident of a blissful future." He was buried in 
the garden, in the centre of what is now a grass-plat, enclosed by a 
hedge of evergreens. Over his grave rises a modest marble shaft, 
bearing this inscription : — 

" BORN A GENTLEMAN, 

BRED A SCHOLAR ANE A LAWYER, 

DIED A CHRISTIAN SOLDIER." 



END OF VOLUME I. 



The TJ^iyersity Memoeial. 

VOLUME 11 — 1862. 



CHATILES SCOTT COWHERD, 

Private, " Gordonsville Grays," IStli Virginia Infantry. 

Charles Scott Cowherd, the third son of John S. and Lucy 
W. Cowherd, was born in Orange county, Virginia, February 
15th, 1837. He was reared in affluence and ease, and on account 
of his exceedingly amiable and gentle disposition, he was the fa- 
vorite of his family and of the community in which he lived. 
During his early life, he enjoyed the educational advantages of a 
first-class neighborhood school, and in 1857 he entered the 
University of Virginia. While there he attended the schools of 
Latin, Greek, and Chemistry, pui'sued his studies with diligence, 
and was held in high esteem, by his Professors. 

At this time the University was in a high state of jjrosperity — 
the number of students being considerably over six hundred. 
These were for the most part young men of wealth, intelligence, 
and pride. Acquaintance among them W'as, in most cases, 
limited ; each had his own particular circle of friends, and knew 
but little — nor cared to know — outside that circle. Charles 
Cowherd was peculiarly retiring in his disposition, and his ac- 
quaintances few ; but among those Avho knew him and daily 
associated with him, he was held in the highest esteem and the 
most sincere and cordial affection. 

At the breaking out of the w'ar, he was First Lieutenant in the 
Gordonsville JNIilitia ; but on the 17th day of April, 1861, he 
volunteered as a private in the " Gordonsville Grays," Captain 
Wm. C. Scott commanding, and marched with the company to 
Harper's Ferry. 

He remained at Harper's Ferry until the Virginia Militia was 
ordered into the field by Governor Letcher, when he returned 
and joined his command at Gordonsville. The Militia was, how- 



jgg,-, THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 79 

ever, soon disbanded, and the Virginia troops turned over to the 
Confederate Government. Upon the dissolution of his company — 
a general quiet prevailing at that time along all the different 
military lines in Virginia — he obtained permission to enter the 
Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, with the view of 
better preparing himself for the life and duties of a soldier in tiie 
field. He had been in the Institute but a short time, when the 
service on the lines became more active and exciting, and he, 
chafing to join his comrades, once more donned the *' jacket of 
gray," and enlisted as a private in Captain Scott's company, then 
incorporated with the 13th Virginia Infantry, and encamped at 
Fairfax Station. As a soldier, he was cheerful, willing, and 
obedient to orders. He ever displayed the most rigid fidelity to 
his duties, and was most highly and tenderly regarded both by 
his officers and his comrades. 

It were pleasant to write of him as one holding his position 
among the living, faithful in tlie discharge of duty, and shedding 
the lustre of his own beautiful and lovely cliaracter around him, 
in the midst of those who loved him, and whom he loved. But 
the s]iadow begins now to fall upon his life. Early in December, 
18G1, he was stricken down by that terrible and fatal scourge of 
the Southern soldier, camp fever ^ and was ordered to the hospital. 
From the field-hospital he was transferred to Gordonsville, and 
reached home scarcely in time to breathe his last in the arms of 
his family, on the 3d of January, 1862. 

At the age of seventeen, Charles Cowherd made a profession 
of religion, and at the time of his death he was a deacon in the 
Baptist Church at Gordonsville. His upriglitness of conduct and 
consistency of life as a Christian, even from first to last, shone as 
brightly as the purest gold. 

A large number of his friends gathered to his funeral, and testi- 
fied, by their tears, to the affection in which tiiey held him. And 
when, on that cold, wintry evening of January, ]862, liis remains 
had been lowered to their last resting-place in the family burving- 
ground at Oak Hill, an old citizen of the community remarked to 
the writer of this tribute, " We have just buried one of the best 
i/ounr/ men ever reared in Ornnf/e County.'" 

These words were literally true. Of comely ajipearance, he 
was gentle as a girl in disposition, genial and cheerful in temper- 
ament ; and, to crown all his comeliness, he was a most faithful 
and devout Christian. 



80 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [January, 

WILLIAM B. PHELPS, 

Private, 1st Kentucky Infantry. 

Wm. Brokenbrough Phelps was born October 9, 1834, at 
the home of his parents, in the immediate vicinity of Covington, 
Kentucky. The fond recollection of friends could recite many 
incidents of his early years which would evince his loving nature 
and the keen pain he manifested at witnessing suffering in the 
smallest and meanest living creature. As a child he was rather 
remarkable for the beauty of his person and the early development 
of his mind, which received the most careful culture. At the age 
of nine he was deprived of his father. His mother, after this sad 
bereavement, removed to Virginia — her native State — and lived 
with her children in her mother's home for nearly a year. At the 
end of this time, proposing to place her eldest child, William, 
in the family of his uncle. Colonel Edward Colston, of Berkeley 
County, Virginia, Mrs. Phelps took up her residence in Shep- 
herdstown, Jefferson County, that she might be accessible to her 
son, from whom, until then, she had never been separated for 
a day. 

Under the kindly roof of Colonel Colston, William Phelps 
lived several 3'ears, sharing with his cousins in all the privileges 
and benefits of an enlightened, pious household, and under the 
regular tuition of classical teachers resident in tiic family. He 
was destined to become an orphan a second time, for in the spring 
of '51 his noble uncle-in-law, who had been almost a father to 
him, died suddenly. A few months after this event, Mrs. Phelps 
applied to the Visitors of the University of Virginia for a place 
for her son in that institution; and about the same time, fearing 
she might fail in this request, she made application to the Virginia 
Military Institute at Lexington. Both the University and the 
Institute acceded to her request, and she, not foreseeing that a 
military education would, in a few years, be a desideratum to the 
men of the South, preferred the former for her son. Accordingly, 
just before he attained his seventeenth year, he matriculated at the 
University, and pursued the academic course there for two years. 
In the summer of 1853 he opened a school in a small town in 
Maryland, and for the two succeeding years he was engaged in 



Igea.] THE ITNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 81 

teacliing, and in reading law. In tlie Avinter of 1855-6 he 
attended the law lectures of his uncle, Judge J. W. Brokenbrough, 
at Lexington, Virginia. 

Retaining the most tender memories of the home of his early 
childhood, he removed to Covington, Kentucky, in the summer of 
1856, and soon obtained a license to practise law in the town 
where his father had been an eminent practitioner in the same pro- 
fession. In the first letter written to his mother after arriving in 
Coving-ton, he enclosed a rose that bloomed in the borders of his 
birth-place — long occupied by strangers — and a sprig of cedar 
from his father's grave. 

He was elected, two years in succession. Attorney for the city of 
Covington; and it is some evidence that he discharged the duties 
of his office satisfactorily, that he was elected the second time while 
confined to his bed by illness. 

In the summer of 1861 he left his mother's home, with a com- 
pany of infantry called the " Madeira Guards," in which he held 
the office of Lieutenant. The company rendezvoused at Clarks- 
ville, Tennessee. While stationed at this place, Lieutenant 
Phelps was seized by a strong desire to go immediately to the 
seat of war in Virginia. Setting out for the Old Dominion, he 
reached Richmond a few days after the battle of Manassas, and 
subsequently became a member of Captain Desha's company, 1st 
Kentucky Infantry, Army of Northern Virginia. 

In his diary kept at this period of inactivity in military mat- 
ters, some passages of interest to his friends are found. He had 
always been a regular attendant at church, and joined with interest 
in the responsive services. On a certain Sunday he wrote : — 
"What would I not give to be at church to-day!" And on the 
9th of October, "This is my birth-day. Wpnder if they are 
thinking of me at home?" He alludes also to a young lady to 
whom he was betrothed. 

On December 22d, the affair of Drainsville occurred. The 
Confederate forces, composed of Virginii, Kentucky, South Caro- 
lina, and Alabama troops, were commanded by General J. E. B. 
Stuart. The enemy, at first rejHilsed by the brilliant charge 
of the Southerners, returned to the attack with reenforcements. 
In the confusion of manoeuvring, the 1st Kentucky mistook 
a South Carolina regiment for the enemy, and fired into it. 
Soon after discovering his mistake, Colonel Taylor with his 
6 



82 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[January, 



KentucKians coming in sight of another regiment, in order to 
avoid a similar occurrence, shouted to know who they were. The 
answer was, "Don't shoot. Me are friends — South Carolinians." 
"On which side are you?" asked Col. Taylor. "For the 
Union," rejjlied the Federals, at the same time delivering a heavy 
fire into the ranks of the Kentuckiaus.* In this battle, William 
Phelps lost his left arm, but retired with the Southern troops 
when they were forced from the field. 

Mrs. Phelps, who was then at her home in Covington, saw the 
name of her son in the list of the wounded, and at once set off to 
Washington. Arriving there on the last day of the year, she 
applied for permission to go to Centreville, but it was refused her. 
She then drove to the house of Gen. McCIellan, who had been a 
friend of her son-in-law. Gen. Mcintosh, in the old army; but 
the General was too ill to be seen, and she then applied to Mr. 
Chase, who had practised for many years at the bar with Mr. 
Phelps, and on most friendly terms. An audience with that 
official was denied her until the next day ; and when, at the ap- 
pointed hour, she repaired to his house and made known her wish, 
he replied, " Your son is in the rebel army : I think that you 
cannot get a passport." In despair the mother exclaimed, "Oh, 
Mr. Chase, he is the son of ycur old acquaintance, Mr. Phelps ! " 
The appeal went at once to the heart. "Are you his widow?" 
said lie.f Mr. Chase at once wrote a note to Mr. Seward, who 
issued a passport for Mrs. Phelps to go to Fortress Monroe. 
Here again she was delayed by Gen, Wool, and would have been 
sent back to Baltimore, had not the eloquence of maternal grief 
prevailed with him, as with Mr. Chase. She was allowed to go, 
on the next day, to Norfolk, but reached that city too late for the 
train to the Confederate Capital. On the night of the nineteenth 
day after the battle of Drainsville, she reached Manassas — only 
a few miles from Washington ! It was too late. That which she 
had so anxiously sought Avas gone : her child had died that 
morning, just ten lionrs before ! 

Three days afterward, he was interred in the family burying- 
ground at Summer Hill, Hanover County. The young Kentucky 
friend wlio accompanied his remains, delivered his parting message 
to her who had sought so long and so anxiously to reach the 
sick-bed of her first-born. " Tell my mother that I die in the 
♦Pollard's " First Year of the War," p. 2J3. f Diary of a Southern Refugee. 



1862.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 83 



faith of Christ ; her early instructions have been greatly blessed 
to me ; and my last word is ' Mother ! ' " 

^^Ve quote now from an obituary notice that appeared, a few days 
after the death of Mr. Phelps, in the Richmond }VJiig, and also 
in the Cincinnati Enquire}' : — 

'^Died at Centreville, Virginia, William Brokenbrough 
Phelp8, son of the late Jefferson Phelps, and grandson of the 
late Judge Wm, Brokenbrough, of Richmond, Virginia. Though 
born in Kentucky, he was reared and educated in Virginia. Six 
years ago he returned to his birth-place, where he was engaged at 
the commencement of the war in the practice of the law. The 
invasion of Virginia soon brought him back to the land of his 
forefxthers; and going last summer to Manassas, he joined 
Captain Desha's company, of the First Kentucky Regiment. At 
Drains ville, in the front rank of his regiment, he sealed his 
devotion to his country with his blood. He there had his left 
arm shattered, which resulted in death on the nineteenth day 
after the action. The devoted attention of his Captain and his 
comrades is above all praise. He bore his sufferings with calm- 
ness and fortitude. . Conscious of his approaching end, he con- 
versed freely with a pious relative, and left messages for his 
mother that must afford consolation. Committing his soul to his 
Saviour, he breathed his last as quiet as an infant. We humbly 
hope and believe that he now rests securely under the banner of 
that great Captain who gave His life for the salvation of the 
world." 



Rev. DABNEY CARR HARRISON, 

Captain, Company K, 56th Virginia Infantry. 

To furnish a brief sketch of this faithful minister of Christ, 
this noble gentleman and valiant officer, who fell at Fort Donelson 
while cheering on his men, and striking for the honor and inde- 
pendence of the young Confederacy, is to me an easy task, for I 
need only to abridge the carefully prepared memoir of him, 
written by my brother, the Rev. William J, Hoge, D. D., about 
a year before his own death. Short as was that memoir, it was 



84 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOKIAL. 



[February, 



composed so conscientiously, and was snch a labor of love on the 
])art of the writer, that I have little to add or supply, and need 
only say that the calmest review, after the lapse of years, only 
confirms my estimate of the fidelity and truthful beauty of that 
tribute to the memory of one so deserving of our lov.e, and so 
worthy of a place among those whose names, embalmed with 
"our praises and our tears," we transmit to those who come after 
us, in the pages of The University Memorial. 

Dabney Caer Harrison was born in the County of Albe- 
marle, Virginia, on the 12th of September, 1830. He was 
descended from a long line of illustrious ancestors. Among those 
immediately related to his family were two signers of the Declara- 
tion of Independence. One of them Avas its illustrious author. 
The other was the father of William Henry Harrison, President 
of the United States. His great-grandfather was a member of 
the House of Burgesses, and eminent for patriotism and eloquence. 
His grandfather, Dabney Carr, was an incorruptible judge, an 
elegant scholar, and displayed in domestic and social life traits of 
character of such rare beauty and dignity, as greatly to endear him 
to the circle which he illumined and adorned. 

From early childhood, Dafney was remarkable for thought- 
fulness, integrity, self-denial, perseverance in difficult under- 
takings, and unfailing obedience to his parents. His studiousuess 
very early gave promise of the rich acquisitions of his after-life. 
When but nine years old he read, in his play hours, the whole 
of Hume's History of England. His favorite books, his composi- 
tions, and his conscientious walk and conversation, show that the 
whole tendency of his mind was, even at this period, deeply 
religious. 

When just fifteen, he entered the Soj)homore class in Princeton 
College, though his preparation was in advance of what was 
required. After an unusually blameless and honorable course at 
this institution, he began the study of the Law with a relative in 
Martinsburg, and pursued it at the University of Virginia for 
two years. He then returned to Martinsburg, and entered on the 
practice of this profession. 

He was well fitted for it both by nature and education. His 
memory was quick, tenacious, and prompt, so that his acquisitions 
were rapidly made, firmly held, and always at command. His 
understanding was comprehensive and solid ; while his imagina- 



I8,i2.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 85 

tion, Avithout being vivid, was graceful and chaste. His perception 
was keen, his judgment cool, his language clear. 

His historical and political knowledge was copious and accurate. 
Having an intrepid intellect, he was fond of discussion. In- 
capable of artifice himself, he was 3^ct not easily entrapped by an 
opponent. At this period of his life his speech Avas, perhaps, too 
often sarcastic; but after grace began its reign, his wit grew con- 
stantly solter, and survived, at length, in the form of good- 
liumored pleasantry only, played off upon friends who could 
understand and enjoy it. His emotions were ardent, but under 
strong control. He had ready sympathies for the weak, generous 
indignation for the injured, while for purity and honor, for liberty 
and right, he was full of noble enthusiasm. He had, moreover, 
the advantages of a pleasing address, classic features, a serene and 
contemplative countenance, the frankness of a fearless and cordial 
nature, and the manners of a thorough gentleman. 

AVith such qualifications, and with a glowing ambition, he 
entered on his professional career. 

But Providence had marked out other and higher work for this 
young lawyer. After long, thorough, prayerful consideration, he 
determined to devote himself to the ministry of the Gospel, and 
entered upon his theological studies in Union Seminary, in tlie 
County of Prince Edward. 

While he still had another year of his Seminary course before 
him, his honored and beloved Professor, the Rev. F. S. Sampson, 
1). D., died ; but the "profiting" of his pupil had so "appeared 
to all," that he was immediately appointed to conduct the studies 
of a considerable portion of the difficult department now made 
Vacant. He spent two years in these labors, delighting the stu- 
dents and giving satisfaction to all. 

But notwithstanding his " aptness to teach," his devotion to 
^Oriental learning, and his rare skill in the Hebrew, his heart still 
yearned for the peculiar work of the Gospel ministry. For nine 
months he acted as pastoral supply to the College Church, and 
for six months more he sustained this relation to the First Pres- 
byterian Church in Lynchburg. 

But a still wider field now opened before him. While yet in 
his twenty-seventh year, he was chosen for the regular term of two 
years, to be chaplain to the University of Virginia. In this office, 
he endeared himself to the whole community, gained the confi- 



86 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [February, 

dence and good-will of the vast body of students, and "Avon 
golden opinions" from men whose commendation is praise indeed. 

One of tlie Professors of the University has been heard to say, 
" I never knew a more successful copy of thejife of our Saviour 
than his." Another said, " I knew him intimately. Our conver- 
sation was as unguarded as that of brothers ; and every sentiment I 
ever heard him utter, was worthy of a gentleman and a Christian. 
I never knew him to neglect a duty, or even to postpone one. 
He was always faithful to his country, and faithful to his God." 

Said another, '"" It was my privilege to hear the E,ev. D. C. 
Harrison preach almost every Sabbath during two sessions of the 
University of Virginia, of nine months each, and I can truly say 
that I never heard him deliver an indifferent, nor even an ordinary 
sermon in all that time." 

"His piety vivified his creed, and his creed gave form to his piety. 
Doctrine and devotion were beautifully blended in all he uttered 
from the pulpit. His prayers were as didactic as his preaching, 
and his preaching as devout and fervent as his prayers. All he 
knew of God and Christ had formed itself into worship, and hence 
his extraordinary gift in prayer, a gift so remarkable as to elicit 
the admiration of all who knew him, whether of the pious or 
impenitent. Who that heard his last prayer amongst us, can ever 
forget the man or his manner, as lie stood in the pastor's pew in 
front of the pulpit, at the close of the sermon (by another), and 
pleaded with God for his country and the enemies of that country. 

" In short, I have heard few men whose preaching approached 
so near to Scripture models, and never have known any man of 
higher qualifications for the successful and acceptable discharge 
of the specific duties of a ])astor." * 

Just as his term of service at the University of Virginia expired, 
he was summoned to his home at "' Clifton," in the County of Cum- 
berland, by the extreme illness of his mother, from whom so 
many of his gifts and graces were inherited ; and very rich was 
the baptism of grace and peace, zeal and tenderness, which came 
down upon his soul, as he lingered, for a few weeks, by her hal- 
lowed grave ; and, then, having accepted a call for his pastoral 
services from the Bethlehem Church in Hanover, he removed 
thither and entered on his labors. 

But there, after many months of fruitful toil, his peaceful life 

*Kev. Dr. McGuffey. 



jggg-j THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 87 

was disturbed by the coming of our national troubles. Dark 
shadows soon became darker realities. This sovereign Common- 
wealth W3? required to aid in beating down into degradation, and 
whipping back into servility, her free sisters of the further South, 
or join with them in their just independence, and throw her gen- 
erous breast before them, to receive the first blow of the tyrant's 
rod, and bear the brunt of his wrath. She obeyed her heart, exer- 
cised her right, and stood in tlie breach. 

In the battle of Bull Run, he lost his gallant cousin. Major 
Carter H. Harrison. Three days later, at Manassas, his native 
soil was wet again by the blood of the only nephews of his mother, 
the only sons of their mother. Holmes and Tucker Conrad, and 
by the blood of his own pure and beautiful brother, Lieut, Peyton 
Randolph Harrison. These four young men were all faithful ser- 
vants of God. Their lives were lovely and useful. In His fear 
they fought. They were sustained by His grace when they fell. 
The Conrads were shot at the same moment, and falling side by 
side, lay, as in the sleep of childhood, almost in each other's arms. 
The younger of them was a student of theology, and was nearly 
ready with glowing heart to enter on the higher service of his 
Lord, in the ministry of the Gospel. 

The noble deaths of these young men stirred the soul of Dab- 
NEY Harrison to its lowest depths. From the beginning of the 
war he had longed to share tlie hardships and dangers of his 
compatriots. Nothing but his sacred office held him back for a 
moment. But now he hesitated no longer. His mind was made 
up. " I must take my brother's place," lie calmly said, and noth- 
ing could turn him from that resolve. He left "the quiet and 
still air of delightful studies," left his loving people and sweet 
little home in Hanover, and having raised a company by great 
personal exertions, entered the service. 

Even then he would not have taken up the sword, if he had been 
compelled to lay down the Bible; he would not have become a 
captain, if he could not have remained a minister. He entered 
the army, believing that his usefulness, even as a ])reacher of 
God's Word, would be increased in that new and hazardous field. 

And after he became fully enlisted in his work as a soldier, no 
one ever saw him even for a moment give way to a bitter spirit, 
or heard him speak a word unbecoming a minister of Christ. Sev- 
eral months after he entered the service, he said, with thankful- 



88 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[February. 



ness and joy, that he had not been conscious of one revengeful 
feeling toward our enemies. No : he would fight for his country : 
but he would not hate. He durst die, but not sin. Conscience, 
not passion, made hiin a soldier; but who does not know that 
conscience is mightier than passion ! His valor was, through the 
grace of God, without fierceness: but like steel whose heat has 
l)een quenched in cold waters, it was, therefore, all the firmer and 
keener, of higher polish and more fatal stroke. 

He spent the first three months after the organization of his 
Company, in the Camp of Instruction, near Richmond, where I 
was in daily intercourse with him. In addition to my pastoral 
duties in the city, I served as chaplain in that camp during the 
years 1862 and 1863. Captain Harrison was with me longer 
than any other minister in tiie service, and delighted to avail 
himself of every opportunity of aiding me in my arduous work. 

Whenever I was prevented by any cause from meeting ray en- 
gagements, he was always ready to take my place ; and I had the 
most abundant evidence of the efficiency of his labors, and of the 
gratitude of the men for his effiarts to promote their temporal and 
spiritual welfare. 

During his stay, at one time several thousand troops were sta- 
tioned at our camp and Captain Harrison was, of course, 
brought into contact with a large number of officers. Over these 
he exercised the most happy influence. 

"While no man was more inflexible in his adherence to his 
convictions of .duty, or more prompt to rebuke whatever he 
believed to be wrong in principle or in conduct, yet his manner 
was so conciliating, such was the candor and kindness of his dis- 
position, such his scrupulous respect for the rights, and regard 
for the feelings of others, that he rarely gave offisnce, even when 
he attempted to repress what he deemed culpable. The very 
presence of one so frank and fearless in his bearing, so delicate 
and refined in his tastes, so pure and elevated in his principles, 
was ordinarily sufficient to check any exhibitions of profanity or 
vulgarity ; and, withal, he was so genial in his nature, so enter- 
taining in his conversation, arid so obliging in his disposition, 
that his presence Avas never regarded as imposing an irksome re- 
straint, even in a company of the irreligious. 

" If others have shown 

'How awful goodness is,' 



1862.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 89 

it was Dabney Harrison's happy province to show how ami- 
jible and attractive it may a2)pear, when thus ilhistrated in the 
life of a Christian gentleman and soldier. Wliile he remained in 
our camp, he moved about as one whose superiority was tacitly 
acknowledged without exciting ill-will or envy ; and when he left 
us, he was regretted as one whose place was not to be filled again. 

While Captain Harrison's good work extended to the surround- 
ing multitudes, his first anxiety was of course for his own men. 
He had gathered them, and given them to the service. They 
were to follow him, it might be, to the death. They, of all others, 
would see what he actually was, as a servant of his country, as a 
servant of his God. 

Therefore he sought to be, every day and in everything, an ex- 
ample to them. He shared their hardshij)s, and all so cheerfully, 
that the most despondent could hardly fail to catch some quicken- 
ing ray from his sunny spirit. As far as was possible, too, he 
ni:ide them share any comfort pertaining to his position. The 
inexperienced found in him a faithful guardian, the perplexed 
went to him freely for counsel, and all the company felt that in 
him they had not only a brave and gallant commander, but a true 
i'riend. His usefulness was like a continual dew. He gave to his 
soldiers new impressions of the power and sweetness of the religion 
of Christ, when they saw how beautifully innocence could blend 
with wisdom ; how the very purity of woman could consist with 
the valor of man, just as whiteness and enduring substance are 
combined in marble; and how the most uncompromising godli- 
ness could be interwoven with the elegance of the gentleman, while 
he devoutest piety but gave new fire to the ardor of the patriot. 

It is unnecessary to dwell on the hardships of Captain Har- 
rison's winter campaign in the West — hard fare and harder lodg- 
ing, and constant exposure to the wet and cold. Whatever he 
bore, many thousands bore with him ; and there are multitudes of 
whom that may be said, which is so true of him — no one ever saw 
him falter, no one ever heard him murmur. A brief extract from 
one of his letters may serve to show the pleasant spirit in which 
all these privations and annoyances were met : — 

" Bowling Green, Kentucky, 1 
January 18, 1862. / 

" M\j Dear Father : — I have been forcibly reminded to-day, of 
an incident in Iluxton's travels. Out on a prairie he found a 



90 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL 



[February, 



wretched looking man, all alone in a pouring rain, stooping over 
a few smouldering embers, and singing, 

' How happy are we, 
Who from care are free . 
Oil ! why are not all 
Contented like me V ' 

" My tent is on a hill-side, and has a flue instead of a chimney. 
It rained hard all last night, has rained all of to-day, and is rain- 
ing yet. The water has risen in my tent, the fire has been 
drowned out, the floor is nearly all mud, and I have been writing 
all the morning in a chair stuck deep in this mud. My bed is 
kept out of it by some fence rails, and my larder is a basket on 
tlie ground at the bed's head, containing a piece of pork and a bag 
of flour. There is not a negro in Virginia that would not despise 
such lodgings, but I am 'contented.' I sleep soundly, work 
hard, eat heartily, and am fattening." 

A day or two later he writes: — "I have just finished a large 
stone chimney to my tent, and shall have it floored with poles 
to-morrow; then I shall be in great state." 

On Monday night, February 10th, six days before his death, he 
thus closes a long letter from the camp before Fort Donelson • — 
" Oh, how all these adventures, with their perils and deliverances, 
their privations and blessings, do drive us to our God ! I want 
no other streno-th than the Lord Jehovah ; no other Redeemer 
than our blessed Saviour; no other Comforter than His Holy 
Spirit. I believe that when we do our duty the Lord will fight 
for us. I feel a constant, bright, and cheery trust in Him. 1 
think of my precious wife and little ones, and long for their society 
and caresses; but 1 am satisfied that it is right that I should be 
here, and I await the development of His will. I think His 
mercy in making us His children in spite of all our ill desert, ought 
to make us willing meekly to bear all that He chooses to lay 
upon us." 

Mightily as many earthly loves drew upon his soul, his Lord's 
love for him was more than all. He had "prepared a place" 
for him "in His Father's House," and now He desired his coming. 
Beyond the river, and before the throne. His voice M'as heard 
saying, " Father, I will that they whom Thou hast given Me be 
with Me where I am, that they may behold ]\[y glory." And 
then from Mount Zion, which is above, came Nvords which once 



isoo.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 91 

sounded in thunder froin Mount Sinai ; but now they came softly, 
and were unheard by any mortal ear. They were words of dis- 
charge and blessing, breathed in music that night over the pillow 
of the sleeping soldier : — " Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy 
work; but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." 

Six days for earth and labor; only six. Then his eternal Sab- 
bath would begin ; rest and worship and joy forever ! 

The battle of Fort Doneison began on Wednesday. Tliat 
night was spent in throwing up breastworks. His men say that 
no man in the company worked harder, or did more in this heavy 
labor, than "the Captain." Thursday night was cold and stormy. 
The rain fell in torrents on the weary watchers in the trenches, 
and, soon changing into sleet, their clothes- froze upon them. By 
Friday evening. Captain Haerison's frame, never robust, gave 
way for a time, and he was compelled to retire to the hospital, 
where he lay quite sick all that night. Yet on Saturday morning, 
a great while before day, and against the remonstrances of his 
friends, he rose and returned to his command. 

The officer who commanded the Fifty-Sixth Regiment at this 
time, gave several instances of such zeal and daring on the part of 
Captain Harrison, that one cannot refrain from applying to him 
what Clarendon says of '" that incomparable young man. Lord 
Falkland," in his touching account of his death: — "He had a 
courage of the most clear and keen temper, and so far from fear, 
that he seemed not without some appetite of danger." 

" You ouglit to be braver than the rest of us," said some of his 
brother-officers to Captain Harrison one day, after witnessing 
some exhibition of his serene fearlessness in danger. 

" Why so ? " said he, pleasantly. 

" Because," said they, " you have everything settled for eternity. 
You have nothing to fear after death." 

" Well, gentlemen," said he, solemnly, after a moment's pause, 
" you are right. Everything is settled, I trust, for eternity, and 
I have nothing to fear." 

As the sun rose on the morning of Saturday, it saw him enter 
the thick of the battle, and wrestle valiantly with the foe. With 
dauntless heart he cheered on his men. They eagerly followed 
wherever he led. Their testimony is, that he never said, ''Go 
on," but always, " Come on," while ever before them flashed his 
waving sword. At length with fear and pain, they saw his firm 



92 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [February. 

step faltering, his erect form wavering. He fell, and the fierce 
tide of battle swept on. It was impossible for his most devoted! 
men to pause. And thej best did his Avill by passing over his 
prostrate body, throwing themselves on the foe, and leaving him 
to die. "He had warred a good warfare, ever holding faith and 
a good conscience." 

Three balls had passed through his hat, without harming him ; 
a fourth cut his temple; a fifth passed through his right lung; 
and this was the fatal wound. 

Two incidents of his dying hours are yet to be recorded. Call- 
ing, about noon, for one of his manuscript books, he took a pencil, 
and, with a trembling hand, feebly wrote these words : — 

''Feb. IQ, 1S62.— Sunday. 

" I die content and happy ; trusting in the merits of my Saviour 
Jesus ; committing my wife and children to their Father and 
mine. 

" Dabney Caer Harrison. " 

Precious legacy of love and prayer ! Precious testimony of 
faith and blessedness ! 

A little while before he died, he slept quietly for a few minutes. 
In dreams his soul wandered back to yesterday's conflict. He was 
again in the battle. The company for which he had toiled and 
prayed and suffered so much, M'as before him, and he was« wounded, 
— dying on the field. But even in dreams he had not lost 

" th' unconquerable "^'ill, 
And courage never to submit or yield." 

Starting out of sleep, he sat once more erect, an(\ exclaimed, 
" Company K, you have no Captain now ; but never give up ! 
never surrender ! " 

The arms of his faithful attendant received him as he rose, and 
now supported him tenderly as his drooping form grew heavier. 
With his head pillowed on a soldier's breast, he sank, peacefully 
as a babe, into that sleep which no visions of strife shall ever dis- 
turb. Thus he died, as he was born, on the Sabbath. Thus was 
his life bounded on either hand by the Day of God. Care and 
conflict came between, but a Sabbath blessing was on it all, and 
then he entered on the higher " Sabbath of the Lord his God, 
eternal in the heavens.' 



1S62.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 93 



As= an appropriate appendix to this sketch, and to show that 
neither of the brothers concerned in its preparation lield Cajit. 
Harrison in higher regard than any others who knew liini well, 
I ap{)end the following eloquent tribute to his memory, from the 
pen of the Rev. Josei)h M. Atkinson, of Raleigh, N. C. It is 
t:iken from a Southern periodical in which it was published in 
18G3 :— 

" While our Church or our country shall survive ; while free- 
dom, or religion, or learning, the noblest gifts of nature, or the 
brightest instincts of personal or hereditary worth, shall be treas- 
ured among men, never will the name and the memory of tlie 
Rev. Dabxey Carr Harrison be forgotten, — a gentleman, a 
scholar, a Ciiristian, a minister, a martyr to his conscientious con- 
viction of public duty, and uncalculating devotion to his country. 
Among the illustrious worthies of ancient story, among the deified 
heroes of ancient song, in the golden records of Grecian ft me, in 
the glowing chronicles of mediaeval knighthood, in the ranks of 
war, in tlie halls of learning, in the temple of religion, a nobler 
name is not registered than his, nor a nobler spirit mourned." 



WM. B. RECTOR, 

Captain, Company I, 42d Virginia Infantry. 

Alfred Rector, father of Captain W. B. Rector, was a resident 
of Fauquier County, Virginia, He was a farmer of independent 
means and high respectability. Besides serving his county for 
many years as a magistrate, he also represented it twice in the 
Legislature, where he introduced and carried against much opj)osi- 
tion, the ISlanassas Gap Railroad Bill. He was married twice; 
first to Miss Sarah Grigsby, who died, leaving three daughters and 
two sons ; his second wife, Catharine Ayres, left only one child, 
a daughter. Although he survived his son for a short while, his 
death was believed by his family to be the result of the inhuman 
conduct of Federal soldiers, whose persecutions appear to have 
been directed against liim with distinguishing severity, becausa he 
persistently and bitterly refused to take tiie oath of allegiance to the 
United States Government. To extort that oath from hirn, he was 



94 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[March, 



one day — a cold day, when the rain was tailing — taken from his , 
sick chamber and placed under the guard of a squad of Zouaves in 
the streets of Rectortown. This act of cruelty failed to accom- 
plish its end, but the health, of Mr. Rector, which had been feeble 
fur several years, declined rapidly from this time. 

William Baylis Rector, his eldest son, was born near the 
village of Rectortown, in Fauquier County, July 22, 1828. In 
the early years of his life he was but little restrained, pecuniarily 
or otherwise, by a too indulgent father, and consequently his time 
was chiefly spent in "fast living." But, as the sequel will show, 
his mind was afterwards aroused to a c:)nsciousness of its powers, 
and he entered upon a new career with a determination to com- 
mend himself to him who had, perhaps, been grieved by his 
extravagances. His feelings at that period of life are well ex- 
pressed by his own words : — " As I live," said he, " my father 
shall be proud to own me for his son." 

On the 23 J of August, 1849, when just twenty-one years of 
age, he married Miss Susan D., daughter of Dr. Elias Frost, of 
Meriden, Sullivan County, New Hampshire — a lady who com- 
bined rare mental endowments with her amiability of disposition 
and firmness of purpose. 

In 1851, William Rector removed, with his family, from 
Fauquier County to Campbell, and located at Concord Depot, on 
the South Side Railroad, where the beginning of the yar found 
him. 

A few years later, and he resolved to enter the legal profession. 
Accordingly, in December, 1858, he left his wife and several little 
children, and repaired to the University of Virginia, where, during 
the remainder of the session, he applied himself vigorously to the 
study of Law. The following summer he appeared before Judges 
Field, Robertson, and Daniel, Jr., passed satisfactorily the requisite 
examination, and was admitted to the bar. 

A new life seemed now to open before William Rector. He 
had a high appreciation of the noble profession which he had 
selected for his own ; and at the age of thirty, to the maturity of 
his fine intellectual powers, he added the enthusiasm of a mind, 
which, conscious it was beginning late the real work of life, was 
yet resolved to attain success. In the city of Lynchburg, and in 
the counties of Campbell and Appomattox, in all of whose courts 
he practiced, he was rapidly compassing his desire. For, in the 



Iggo.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 95 

brief period that remained for the pursuit of peaceful avocations, 
he had already won a high and influential position at the bar. 

When the Ordinance of Secession Avas passed, although opposed 
to the disrupiion of the Government, he began at once to take 
measures to defend the action of Virginia. How well he did his 
duty in this new capacity may be seen from the following letter of 
Col. Robt. ^Y. Withers to A. Walter Ransom, Esq.:— 

"Lynchburg, Va,, July 1st, 1869. 
"My Dear Sir:— 

" In compliance with your request, I will endeavor to give a short 
account of tlie career of my much valued friend and gallant Cap- 
tain, Wm. B. Rector, from the 12th of July, 1861, to the 23d of 
March, 1862. 

" Capt. Wm. B. Rector, who resided in Campbell County, at 
Concord Depot, S. S. R. R., raised a most respectable compMuy of 
infantry, — 'The Campbell Guard,' — on or about the 12th July, 
1861, and with it was mustered into service in the 42d Virginia 
Regiment of Infantry (Col. Jesse Burks commanding), at Camp 
Davis, near Lynchburg, about the 14th July. 

"On the 18tli, this command was ordered to Staunton, where it 
remained a short time, and then moved to Pocahontas County. 
Tliere, and in adjoining counties, it did hard service, but no fight- 
ing, in the brigade of Gen. W. W. Loring. In December it was 
ordered with Gen. Loring's command to Winchester, and joined 
the forces of Gen. Thomas L. Jackson. After remaining in camp 
near Winchester, until the 1st day of January, 1862, the whole 
command moved on the enemy, who were quartered at the Bath 
Springs in Morgan County. On reaching that point a light skir- 
mish ensued, which resulted in forcing the enemy to retire across 
the Potomac, near Hancock. From there our forces moved on 
Romney with like results. Jackson with his old command then 
returned to Winchester, leaving Loring with his brigade to hold 
Romney. 

"In the latter part of February, Loring, having rejoined Jack- 
son, was ordered South, and Col. Burks was placed in command 
of the briarade : Lieut. -Col. D. A. Lansfhorne of the 42d, takino- 
charo;e of that reg-iment. 

" About this time the enemy moved in heavy force against Jack- 
son, whose army was very small, on account of a large number of 



96 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[March, 



men being absent on re-enlistment furloughs, and several com- 
mands having been transferred to other portions of the State. 
Upon the approach of the enemy, Jackson beat a liurried retreat 
down tlie Valley to Rude's Hill, where he halted for the night ; 
but the next morning he made a countermarch to Strasburg, and 
the day after engaged the enemy at Kernstown, about three miles 
south of Winchester. Here a short but sharp battle was fought, 
the enemy numbering some 12,000, our forces not exceeding 
5000, and one regiment of that small number, the 48th Virginia, 
not being engaged. 

"The 42d Virginia was in the very heat of battle, and acted a 
conspicuous part in this, its first engagement. Our gallant Cap- 
tain Rector, here in the hottest of the fight and at close quar- 
ters, with his usual vim and soldierly conduct, mounted a stump, 
and waving his sword and shouting to his men to do their duty 
and render a good account of themselves, made liimself a target 
for the Yaukee bullet, and fell mortally Avounded by a Minie 
ball 

" A brief but glorious career! Captain Rector was destined 
to be of great worth to his country, but an all'wise Providence saw 
fit to take him from us, and that too in an all-important hour." 

Tiie closing scenes of his life are summed up in a letter to the 
sister of Captain Rector, from the Rev. B. F. Brooke, for- 
merly of Winchester, but now of Alleghany City, Pennsylvania. 

" We all knew" — wrote Mr. Brooke — " we all knew he was a 
brave and valiant soldier. His comrades in arms often mentioned 
his bravery to me, and always expressed, in enthusiastic terms, 
their admiration of his noble bravery in the field, as well as in 
private circles. He was, without doubt, a very splendid young 
man. He possessed extraoi'dinary powers of mind, v,-as unusually 
gifted with force of intellect and sound judgment ; and when 
these native powers were cultivated to a very high degree, he 
became equal to any young man of his age. He M'as generous, 
magnanimous, and affectionate. No man ever trusted him in vain. 
Had he lived, his would have been, doubtless, a career of surpass- 
ing brilliancy and success. He was frequently at my house Avhile 
in Winchester, and a more congenial spirit I never met. When 
leaving ns to march up the Valley, just before the battle in which 
he fell, he said : ' If anything happens to me, I want to be 
brought to your house.' 



l«.,io.] THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 97 

" Oa Sunday, ho went into the Kernstown fight about 5 o'clock 
in the afternoon. He was struck with a ball in the upper part of 
the head, and fell gently to the ground. One of his men, who 
fell wounded by his side, related to me these facts: — He asked 
Captain Rector, ^Are you much injured?' The Captain re- 
plied, 'I do not think I am mortally wounded.' A few minutes 
after, a Federal officer came along and removed him from the 
ground. Pie requested to be taken to a private house in Win- 
chester. 'Your request shall be granted,' said the officer. It 
seems, however, Captain Rector lost all consciousness before ho 
reached the town, and was taken to the Union Hospital, where 
Mrs. Page, of Clarke County, Avith other kind ladies, attended to 
his wants. Mrs. P. stated that he was delirious, havino^ been 
shot in the brain. At times he would hold her hand and call her 
'Sue,' and say, 'Oh, the dear children!' He imagined his 
wife was with him. 

" On Wednesday morning, the 28th JMarch, he died ; and he 
was buried in the soldiers' grave-yard, just outside the town." 

No wonder that in his delirium he talked to his wife about his 
children! He had left her provided for with scrupulous care; 
but the dark days were now at hand, and his eight little ones — 
the oldest a daughter of eleven years, the youngest less than a day 
old — were about to be numbered among the " orphans of the war ! " 

At the next term — April, 1862 — of the County Court of 
Campbell, the following preamble and resolutions were adopted : — 

" Whereas, The members of this bar and the Court have heard, 
with deep sorrow, of the death of Captain William, Bayli^ 
Rector, who fell in the prime of manhood and usefulness, at the 
battle of Kernstown, while heroically and gallantly leading on 
hi^ company in the thickest of the fight, — 

"Beit resolved, 'ist, That in him we recognize a gentleman of 
high promise as a lawyer, a useful and valuable citizen, a Nvarm 
and generous friend, a true-hearted and jiatriotic soldier, a man 
who had won the full confidence and esteem of all who knew him. 
That in his death our Bar have lost a genial and warm-hearted 
associate, tlie County a valuable and enterprising citizen, and our 
country a brave and gallant soldier. 

"Ixesolved, 2d, That we deeply sympathize with his afflicted 
wife and children, in this sad and dark hour of their bereave- 
ment." . . . 
7 



98 ' THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [j^^ril. 



JOHN BAKER THOMPSON, M. A., 

Lieutenant-Colonel, 1st Arkansas Infantry. 

The materials do not exist for making a memoir of John 
Baker Thompson, worthy of him, yet his name should not be 
omitted in a list of the Alumni of the University who fell during 
the war; for no nobler Alumnus ever left that seat of learning, 
nor more gallant soldier perished in that terrible struggle. This 
imperfect sketch, while it caunot convey an adequate idea of its 
subject to those who did not know him, will at least recall his 
image and character to his friends, while its preparation is, to the 
writer, a labor of love. 

John Baker Thompson was the son of Hon. Lucas P. 
Thompson, for many years Judge of the 11th Circuit, and latterly 
of the Court of Appeals. His mother was Caroline Tapscott. 
He was born April 6th, 1834, in Amherst, Virginia, which was 
also the native County of his fiither and grandfather. In his 
childhood, his father removed to Staunton, and in the pure, tonic 
air and inspiring scenery of this mountain region, he grew up to 
manhood. Slender in figure, yet of well-knit sinews, with buoy- 
ant spirits, and an ardent love of nature, he delighted to tramp 
over the fields after game, or follow the windings of the mountain 
brook, in pursuit of trout. He is spoken of, by one who knew 
him, as "a bright, noble-hearted boy, always ready for a kind 
word or brave deed." Another, well competent to judge, and en- 
joying ample opportunities for forming an opinion, testifies that 
" from early childhood he gave promise of the rare endowments 
and admirable qualities which ripened into such rich maturity in 
his after years. To this day Judge Thompson's old family-ser- 
vants speak with the warmest affection of their ^ young master 
John Baker.' " His academic course was pursued at the High 
School, in Staunton, conducted by Pike Powers, Esq. 

In October, 1852, in the 19th year of his age, he entered the 
University of Virginia, and with apparent ease and with eclat took 
the degree of Master of Arts in two years. The next year he 
spent in teaching a school in the County of Albemarle. At this 
time, it is believed, he "passed from death unto life, " and became 
"a new creature" in Christ Jesus. His conduct, in this connec- 



1362.] '-THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 99 

tioii, was marked by that frankness and noble simplicity which 
were always strikingly characteristic of him. The general thought- 
fulness upon religious subjects, which he had for some time felt, 
having deepened into a conviction of personal guilt and sinful- 
ness, he rode to the University, and sought the room of one who 
had often manifested an interest in his religious welfare. His 
countenance and tones, and unusually warm grasp of the hand, 
sliowed that his heart was full, and without delay or introductioc, 
iie said that he felt himself a sinner, and had come to be prayed 
with and directed. 

The next year he was appointed Professor of Mathematics in 
Kenyon College, Ohio. " He was soon compelled by ill health 
to resign his position, but not till he had won golden opinions from 
its officers and all with whom he was associated." It is an inter- 
esting fact that, while at Kenyon College, he not only lay at the 
point of death, but was reported to be dead. But his work was 
not done. He was yet to make his life sublime. , 

With a view to the restoration of his health, he went to South 
America in the position of Captain's clerk, under Capt. PIuU of 
the St. Lauireiice. He was absent from the United States about 
nine months. During this period, which was one of comparative 
leisure, he corresponded freely with his friends. One of his let- 
ters written in metre and in playful style, could it be produced 
here, would give a better idea than any description can do, of the 
sprightliness of his mind and the genial warmth of his nature. 
We insert at this place an extract from a letter from him, addressed 
to the writer. It is dated 

" U. S. F. St. Lawrence, ) 

At Sea, Hay 2lst, 1857. \ 

" My situation is such that I must either not write at all, or else 
be quite egotistical. I will endeavor to give you a short account 
of what I have been doing since I saw you, hoping you will look 
on it with the same feelings with which I would behold a very 
long account of your own experiences. ]\Ey health fluctuated all 
last year until the Fall, when it became so bad, notwitlistanding 
my very strenuous exertions to maintain it, that I accepted the 
post of Captain's clerk under Capt. Hull, of the St. Lawrence 
(he is nephew of Commodore Hull of ' Constitution and Guerriere' 
memory). I left tlie I^. S. in October, and was very unwell with 



100 THE UIS'IVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[April, 



pleurisy at starting. I never suffered so much, as during the first 
three weeks of our voyage. The fare was bad, the accommoda- 
tions wretched, the weather miserable, my body in constant pain, 
and my messmates always drinking, swearing, and singing ril)ald 
songs. I must do them the justice to say that they were all very 
kind to me. Everything, however, gradually became better. The 
drinking and singing ceased by degrees, and now everything is 
even orderly. After about fifty days, we arrived in Rio de 
Janeiro. The limits of this letter will not permit me to give you 
a minute description of Rio. It is a city of 250,000 inhabitaiits. 
It is built on mere rocks, and some of its streets resemble winding- 
stairs. They are all narrow and filthy. The people of Rio are 
mongrel, and of a diseased appearance. They speak a corrupt 
Portuguese. They enjoy considerable religious liberty and great 
political freedom. There are but few Protestants in Rio, and they 
principally temporary residents, constituting one small congrega- 
tion. The scenery about the city is exquisite. It is entirely sur- 
rounded by mountains not very lofty, but very rugged and pictur- 
esque. The harbor is said to be the next to that of Naples in beauty. 
We formed no acquaintances with any of the high families of Brazil. 
They are very exclusive, and particularly so to ' Americans,' some 
of our former officers on this station having brought discredit on 
our name by their excesses. 

" Tlie fever having broken out in Rio, we went to Montevideo, 
a city on the Rio de la Plata, of about 40,000. We were well 
pleased Avith this place, and well received. I formed the ac- 
quaintance of some of the first families, and had the pleasure of 
talking Spanish with the noblesse. After studying Spanish all 
the cruise, I found it very easy to converse with the Spanish 
ladies. However, the fever broke out in Montevideo as violently 
as it ever did in Cuba, and we were compelled to go to Maldonado, 
another town of Uruguay, where we stayed several weeks. Here 
too we had a pleasant time. The hunting (and you know that's a 
weakness of mine) is most delightful. Four of us, one day, killed 
five deer, and an ostrich six and a half feet high. The girls of 
Maldonado visited our ship in force one evening. The Mayor 
gave our officers a ball the same da}'. They danced till Sunday 
morning. This the Spaniards regard as the best day for amuse- 
ments of all sorts. We left Maldonado shortly afterwards, and 
returned to Montevideo for the mail. The fever was on the 



1S62.-1 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 101 

increase. We lay there a week, but escaped it. We then re- 
turned to Rio, and found the fever still there. We lay there also 
more than a week, and then came out here on a cruise for exercise. 
Here we lie now, perfectly careless whether we have a breeze or 
not, just living at sea because it is healthy and gives an oppor- 
tunity to exercise in target-firing, &g. We are about 80 miles 
from Rio, and can return in a few houis with a good breeze. 
The sea looks like glass, and for hours after a vessel passes, her 
wake is distinctly visible, resembling a road over a prairie. The 
swell of the sea makes it appear to be winding over gentle hills. 
Yesterday I stood on the poop and heard the billows booming on 
the precipitous rocks nearly twenty miles distant. I jiass my 
time very agreeably reading law, studying modern languages, 
playing chess, &c. My duties are^ — 0, almost. I have learned 
Portuguese, and read the Luriad of Camoens. I am now 
learning Italian. I read a good many French books, and find 
that this great variety of studies prevents all ennui. 

" My health is rather moderate, but yet I should be quite pleased 
to be always able to undergo as much as at present. I know it is 
much better to be afflicted with bad health, and am so utterly con- 
vinced of it that I have no room for that faith in the dealings of 
Providence that afflictions are intended to perfect. Would it not 
be better if I could say, ' I know not why I should suffer, but God 
has reasons for afflicting me and I acquiesce,' than to say, ' I 
plainly see that I am ever disposed to be too much attracted by the 
trifles of time, and that sickness makes me more thoughtful and 
more attentive to the things of eternity, and therefore I will try 
and cheerfully submit'?" 

In the summer of '57, Mr. Thompson returned to the United 
States, still delicate, but much invigorated, and with a new lease 
of life. He now addressed himself again to wonc, and became an 
Instructor in the Albemarle Female Institute, Charlottesville, in 
which the curriculum was as extensive, and the standard as high 
as in our colleges. Besides himself, three other Mastei'S of Arts of 
the University were in the Faculty, viz.,, John Hart, W. N. Bron- 
augh and Crawford H, Toy. He also filled the position of Li- 
centiate Professor in the University. One intimately associated 
with him at this period says, " His ability and success in this in- 
struction were marked." In June, 1858, he was married to Miss 
Alice Powers (the eldest daughter of Pike Powers, Esq.,) of 



102 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[April 



Staunton, between whom and himself an attachment had existed 
for years. In 1859, he became a candidate for the Professorship 
of Latin in the Universitj of Virginia, a position which he wonkl 
have adorned. Pie "vvas, however, not elected, and the same year 
accepted the Presidency of St. John's College, Little Rock, an in- 
stitution established by the Free Masons of Arkansas. Here he 
continued until the breaking out of the war, laboring earnestly 
and with signal success, in building up that infant institution. 

While the dark war-cloud was rising over the land, his own 
life was darkened by the death of his wife, a woman of singularly 
pure spirit, vigorous intellect and elegant accomplishments, in 
every way worthy of him. She died in the hope of the Gospel of 
Christ ; but the stricken husband, though bearing the blow Avith 
manly fortitude and Christian resignation, felt that life had now, 
for him, lost its charm and brightness. 

Early in '61 President Thompson resigned his office, and was 
elected Major of the 1st Arkansas Regiment. On reaching A^ir- 
ginia with his regiment, his health was so feeble that he was urged 
by his physician to leave the service, " but his frail and suffering 
body was the abode of a spirit too gallant, too unselfish, too ardent 
in its patriotism and its devotion to truth and justice, to remain 
idle while others w^ere fighting in defence of a bleeding country." 
The 1st Arkansas was encamped near the Potomac wdien sum- 
moned to Manassas, to participate in the battle impending there. 
By a march which compares well Avith any subsequently made by 
Stonewall Jackson's famous " foot cavalry," they ai'rived in time, 
" but, though under fire for awhile, were not called into action 
till too late to share much of the dangers and glories of that 
memorable day." 

The writer remembers the solicitude manifested at this time by 
Major Thompson for the religious welfare of his men. He also 
recollects, with pleasure, evidences -which the young officer gave of 
his appreciative interest in "things unseen and eternal." This 
remark is recalled, as made by him, in conversation (though the 
date of the conversation is not certainly remembered), that in 
heaven one would never weary or suffer from ennui, as he Avould 
have the infinite God, in contemplating and worshipping w-hom 
the soul would find ample scope for the exercise of both its facul- 
ties and affections. 

"While Mr. Thompson had, perhaps, from ill health and bereave- 



1862} THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. - lOo 

menl and the troubles of the country, lost that buoyancy wliicli 
had formerly chatacterized him, he was far from gloomy. On the 
contrary, though he seemed neither to expect nor to desire long 
life, lie was bright and cheerful, and entered Avith interest into all 
that concerned others. Pie Avas, if possible, more than ever before, 
a delightful companion, chastened and mellowed, but not soured 
or morbidly sad. If he was, and felt himself to be near the con- 
fines of the eternal world, its light rather tlian its shadow fell upon 
his soul. He presented a striking illustration of the truth that 
those who ''remember their Creator in the days of their youtli," 
while tliey may see "evil days" — as indeed all must do in this 
world — will never say of any, however sad, that they " have no 
pleasure .in them." 

In the spring of '62, at Major Thompsok's request, the regi- 
ment was transferred to Tennessee, and on its reorganization he 
was elected Lt.-Colonel. His reason for seeking this transfer was 
the hope of seeing more active service. While he would have 
been resigned to God's will, he felt a horror of dying by inches of 
pulmonary disease, and longed, if it might be so, to fall on the 
battle-field. This, God in mercy vouchsafed to him. Under date 
of Corinth, Miss., April 9th, 1862, Col. Fagan writes as follows 
to Judge Thompson : — 

"We had a tremendous fight on the 6th and 7th, near the Ten- 
nessee River. Col. Thompson fill on the 6tli, while gallantly 
leading the right in an attack upon a strong position of the enemy. 
He was struck by seven bullets, and died on the 8tli inst. He 
was one of my dearest and truest friends, and I have no l:ino"ua<»'e 
with which to express to you my keen sense of his loss. He died, 
as he had always wished to do, on the field of battle, and at the 
head of his command." 

It is comforting to read, in this connection, the following letter, 
written by Col. Thompson, in anticipation of his fall : — 

"Near Monterey, TexNn., 
'' Night of April 4, 1862. 
" My Dear Father : — 

I write by the light of our bivouac fire. 
We expect, by God's help, a glorious victory to-morrow. If I 
should not see you again, take the assurance that I trust in God to 
be prepared for all. Day after to-morrow is my birthday. Love 
to all. Your devoted Son, 

Jno. B. Thompson." 



104 - THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[April, 



On that birthday, he fell. It was "as he had always wished." 
Two days after, he died. It is hard to think of him suffering, 
dying, far away from liome and loved ones. But he was "pre- 
pared for all" this — and not this only, but, what is infinitely 
more important, " prepared for all " beyond. 

Rev. Crawford H. Toy, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testa- 
ment Interpretation, in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 
Greenville, South Carolina, and for some time intimately associated 
with the subject of this sketch, writes as follows : — " Mr. Thomp- 
son was, for his age, a learned man. After taking his degree at 
the University of Virginia, he devoted all the time which his 
health permitted, to study, and his classical and mathematical at- 
tainments were uncommonly great. At the age of twenty-five, he 
was able to grasp the most difiicult problems of the Calculus, and 
if he had prosecuted the subject, would have made his mark as a 
mathematician, while his classical scholarship was sufficient to 
justify him in becoming a candidate for the Chair of Latin in the 
University, his failure being due to no lack of confidence in his 
ability. His mind was eminently analytic, and his discussions of 
rhetoric were marked by independence of thought and clearness. 
We have never seen any account of Figures of Speech which we 
regarded as so able as his, especially his distinction between Simile, 
Metaphor and Allegory, and his explanation of Parable; an ac- 
count which we think was published, and which we believe would 
be useful to teachers of rhetoric, as well as to students of the 
Bible. The same acuteness he showed in all his discussions. 

" His friendship with W. N. Bronaugh is described in the memoir 
of the latter. He was thoroughly true and amiable, a Virginia 
gentleman, his external polish setting forth a refined mind. He 
lived and died a Christian. In the darkest hour of his life, when 
his wife was taken from him, he did not lose his trust in God, but 
only clung to Him more closely. His exemplary conduct, his 
steady performance of Christian duty, were the results of his firm 
faith in the Saviour." 

It is not known that Mr. Thompson ever practised the art of 
public speaking. It is, however, quite certain that he possessed 
abilities which would have made him an effective speaker, had he 
ever turned his attention to it. A speech which ha wrote out and 
delivered as the " Monthly Oration," before the Jefferson Society 
at the University of Virginia, the writer remembers reading, and 



1862.] THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOKIAL. 105 

also the favorable impression it made upon him, especially for its 
apt and brilliant illustrations drawn from natural science. 

As an author, he would have excelled. At the request of the 
writer, he comjiosed a tale which, for original conception, graphic 
description, and graceful style, was of high order. Its point 
consisted in a young lawyer's success, from his knowledge of a 
somewhat recondite fact in natural history, in clearing a man 
under trial for murder, and with overwhelming circumstantial 
evidence against him. There was also a modicum of love and 
conspu'acy. Certainly, the story was told with power and was 
deeply interesting. It was never published, the author iu all 
probability regarding it as a mere trifle ; but it would have 
adorned any magazine in the land. 

A few facts and incidents are subjoined, as illustrative of his 
character. 

During his first year at the University, while entirely moral 
and regular in his life, he, on a single occasion, in a convivial 
scene, drank to such an extent as to show it in his manner, though 
he by no means lost his gentlemanly sense. With returning 
soberness came not merely poignant remorse, but a better feeling, 
which led him to seek a Christian friend and ask his pardon if he 
had offended or grieved him by aught said or done while he was 
not perfectly himself. A single lapse of this sort, in a youth amid 
the temptations of the University, is venial. It might even be 
dne to qualities, in themselves for the most part lovely and love- 
able ; but the course he pursued after it seems to us to indicate a 
soul of the purest and noblest type. 

Another incident illustrates his readiness to stand up for the 
true and the right. A certain youth was ill, and being visited by 
a religious student, who was a friend of Mr. Thompson, gladly 
welcomed religious conversation and prayer. Subsequently he 
recovered, became ashamed of the fears felt in the prospect of 
death, and even went so far as to refer to the visit and religious 
services as intrusive and distasteful to him. Mr. Thompson, who 
was cognizant of the facts of the case, promptly stated them, and 
defended his friend from the unworthy imputation. 

In the spring of 1858 the writer spent two* bright, happy days 
with Mr. Thompson, fishing for trout in the streams near Buffalo 
Gap. The night Avas spent at a simple country inn, kept by an 
old lady whose shrewd wit was infinitely entertaining. One of 



106 THE UNIA'EKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[April, 



the party, perhaps expecting to be favored with a glass of cream, 
remarked at supper on tb.e richness of the cream, adding that cream 
was liis weakness, to which tlie hostess replied dryly, that she sup- 
posed everybody had a weakness for cream. This little incident, 
exciting a smile at the moment, was heartily laughed at when the 
bed-room Avas reached, and often afterwards by those interested. 
On the afternoon of the second day, the party spent some hours on 
the high embankment near the Gap, waiting for the t;ain. A 
fine view, principally of mountains, is had from this point, and the 
sportsmen employed themselves in surveying carefully portions of 
the landscape, and then seeking, either with closed eyes or averted 
face, to reproduce the scene to themselves and to paint it by words. 
Mr. Thompson ^vas a skilled angler, having been from childhood 
a zealous disciple of Izaak Walton, but his companion was inex- 
perienced and inexpert. Still the latter, contrary to all rule, had 
been quite successful, though he had often thrown the fish into 
queer places and gotten his line hopelessly entangled. This too 
was a source of exquisite amusement to Mr. Thompson, who 
afterwards remarked that the trout must have respected the cleri- 
cal office, as they bit contrary to all precedent. He also drew a 
pencil-sketch of the preacher-angler in the brush, with his pole 
perpendicular, his hook caught in the top of a tree, and a trout 
turned into a flying-fish and soaring to the sky. He had a lively 
sense of the ludicrous, and was extremely witty, but his good taste 
and kindness of heart were such that he never aimed a shaft to 
wound. • 

Repeated reference has been made to Mr, Thompson's diligence 
and success as a student. The truth is, whatever he did, he did 
with enthusiasm, and, therefore, well. In every department in 
which he labored, he was, in the true sense of that word, an ama- 
teur. He loved his work, and never did it mechanically. Thus, 
while stern, bloody war was repugnant to his heart, yet having 
engaged in it as a duty, he studied it as a fine art, and devoted all 
his spare time, even when at home, " on sick leave," to the study 
of tactics and military science. 

A few months before the breaking out of the Avar, Mr. Thomp- 
son Avas in Staunton, Avhen union prayer-meetings Avere held in 
the Town-Hall, with reference to the state of the country. As is 
usual, there Avere but few persons, besides the pastor, Avho Avere 
willing to lead in prayer. On one occasion, the conductor of the 



1862.] 



THE UNtVeKSITY MEMORIAL. 107 



meeting called upon Mr. Thompson to pray. The luiU Avas 
crowded with people of all denominations and of no religions 
persuasion ; and the position, to a young man who had never 
prayed in public was an embarrassing one; indeed, some even 
thought it at least ill-judged in the leader to place him in it. 
However this may have been, Mr. Thompson seemed to feel it 
his duty to "stand up for Jesus," and therefore, though it was 
doubtless a cross, did not decline, but made a fervent and appro- 
priate prayer. Had he lived, there is reason to believe that to a 
pure, upright Christian life, he would have added special activity 
in the various departments of Christian labor. As it was, he never 
hesitated to let it be known where he stood, and what master he 
served. 

We close this inadequate sketch with a quotation from a just 
and beautiful tribute paid to Col. Thompson, by Mr. Powers. 

" He has passed to a higher stage of action, and has left us a 
love saddened by no reproach, a memory tarnished by no stain, 
and an admiration dimmed by no defect. A brighter, purer, 
loftier spirit has seldom, if ever, passed from this troubled and 
stormy scene to the realms of light and peace. With a mind 
equal to any subject, he had reaped almost every field of knowl- 
edge, and stored up its fruits to be given to the use and pleasure 
of others with the readiest kindness and most unpretending sim- 
plicity. Soaring with the wisest in their loftiest flights, he dis- 
dained not to lead the child, with gentle affection and with patient 
assiduity, along the humble walks of elementary knowledge. In 
all the relations of life he was most exemplary. No son more 
dutiful, no brother more affectionate, no husband more tender, no 
friend more fiiithful, no patriot more devoted, no soldier more 
heroic : and the charm of his beautiful character was that, while 
all acknowledged, none were oppressed by his superiority. His 
modest dignity, his ready sympathy, his admirable judgment and 
his remarkable power of adaptation, made him the cherished and 
favorite of all, high and low, learned and unlearned alike, like the 
blessed sunshine which, though brighter than everything else, is 
ever welcomed and loved because it cheers and gladdens all on 
Avhom it falls. And to crown all, he was an humble, consistent 
and devoted Christian. ... By the power of religion, he was 
even patient and unmurmuring in all the suffering of protracted 
disease ; in the trials and disappointments of a chequered life, and 



108 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[April, 



the terrible agony of his last and greatest misfortnne, the loss of a 
beloved wife, of whom it is enongh to say that she was worthy to 
be the companion of'snch a man. * Lovely in their lives, in their 
death, they were' scarcely 'divided.' 'The memory of the just 
is blessed, and such men as Col. Thompson, though removed, are 
not lost to us. The light of their glorious example and the mem- 
ory of their beautiful life, point us to all that is true, and beautiful, 
and good. 

' They fell devoted but undying ; 
The very gale their name seems sighing; 
Their spirits wrap the dusky mountain, 
Tlieir memory sparkles o'er the fountain ; 
The meanest rill, the mightiest river 
Rolls mingling with their names forever." 



DR. CHARLES O. SHELTON, 

Assistant Surgeon, Guiber's Battery, Department of the West. 

Charles Oscar Shelton was born in St. Louis, Missouri, 
Dec. 27, 1835. His parents, John G. Shelton and Mary W. 
Shelton, were natives of Virginia. 

As a boy, he evinced a strong predilection for books; his fond- 
ness for study rendering him a favorite with his teachers, while his 
genial disposition and high sense of honor endeared him to his asso- 
ciates. As a man, he was quiet and undemonstrative, even retiring 
in manner, yet with a bearing distinguished for courtesy to all. 

His preparation for College M^as made at the St. Louis English 
and Classical High School, then under the conduct of Mr. Edward 
Wyman, a gentleman of enviable reputation for scholarly attain- 
ments. In the autumn of 1854, he came to Virginia — still cher- 
ished by his parents as the land of their birth — and in October 
he quietly settled down as a student at the University. Here his 
stay had more of the air of permanence than is usual even with 
those students who remain longest at College. Having taken up 
his quarters in No. 9 West Lawn, he did not change his dormi- 
tory during the four years of his residence at the University. 
There was an atmosphere of comfort about his room, and in tlie 
man an apparent satisfaction with all his surroundings, which sug- 
srested to visitors that he felt that he was at home. The circle of 



1S62.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 109 



his acquaintances was small, that of his associates much smaller. 
Tin's fact was due rath<H' to liis modesty, and his regular atteml- 
u:ice to his duties, than to any native hauteur or disposition to 
cxclusivciicss; for he was a gentleman of habitually courteous 
manner and of pleasing address. 

The first three years he spent in the academic course, and during 
this period graduated in Latin, German, Chemistry, and Political 
Economy; the fourth session was devoted to the study of Medi- 
cine, after which he repaired to New York, and there spent two 
years more, attending medical lectures and practising his profes- 
sion in the hospitals of the city. 

After an absence of six years, during which he had been busily 
preparing himself for the serious duties of life, Dr. Shelton 
returned to his native city to locate as a physician. Shortly after 
his arrival, he became a member of "The National Guards," a 
Company regularly organized in the State service. In accordance 
with the laws of Missouri, "The National Guards," together with 
other Companies, were at Camp Jackson, attending their yearly 
drill, when, on the 10th of May, 1861, they were captured by the 
United States troops and imprisoned in the St. Louis Arsenal. 
The second day after their capture, the State troops were released 
on parole, and such as chose to unite their fortunes with the 
Southern Confederacy, were regularly exchanged as prisoners of 
war, in November of the same year. 

Dr. Shp:lton immediately availed himself of the opportunity 
to serve that cause which enlisted all his sympathies. Upon his 
arrival in "the South," he was commissioned Assistant-Surgeon, 
and assigned to duty with Capt. Guiber's Battery, in the Western 
Department. ,. Eminently fitted for such service as this by his 
attainments and experience, he entered with enjihusiasm upon his 
duties. But the hardships and exposure of the winter campaign 
proved too severe for his constitution. In March, 1862, shortly 
after the battle of Pea Ridge, he was compelled to abandon the 
field; and being cut off from his home, made a visit to New Or- 
leans, with the hope of recovering his health. In this he was dis- 
appointed : his system too severely taxed, rejected every remedy, 
and his strength wasted steadily and rapidly away, until the 22d 
of April. In his death, which occurred on that day, the country 
lost a man of whom any people might be proud, and his profession 
a member who was already an ornament to it. He was nobler 
dead than many a living man. 



110 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [April, 



1 

KICHARD P. LATHAM, M.A., 

Lieutenant of Engineers, A. N. V. 

Richard Philip Latham, eldest son of Jolin F. and Catherine 
M. Latham, was born September 15, 1825, in tlie village of Jeffer- 
sonton, Ciilpeper County, Virginia. At the age of three years 
he was taught to read, and soon gave evidence of that passion for 
books which characterized his entire life. Exceedingly fond, like 
any other child, of play, he would yet, while very young, sit for 
hours with thoughtful expression of countenance, listening to the 
conversation of those much older than himself, and apparently 
wholly engrossed by it. 

For several years he was a pupil of Caleb Burnley, Esq., who 
at that time taught a large school of young men and boys in 
Jeffersonton. But when about sixteen, his father suffered heavy 
pecuniary losses, and found himself unable to keep him longer at 
his studies. With characteristic energy, he resolved at once to 
depend upon his own resources for an education. Hearing that 
]\Ir. Benjamin H. Benton, of the Lisbon Institute, was in search 
of an assistant, he made application for the position, and was 
accepted. Here he remained for two years, faithfully discharging 
his duties, and, by his genial disposition, rendering himself a 
favorite with his associates and popular with his pupils. 

He had fully determined at this time to attend the University 
of Virginia, and keeping this object in view, while devoting all 
his leisure hours to the closest study, he Avas rigidly economical 
of his means. His private journal, M'ritten during his engage- 
ment with Mr. Benton, is full of interest to those who knew and 
loved him : on the one hand it tells of the heart, yearning for the 
home he had left for the first time, longing to be joined again to 
the loved ones and to hold oommunion with them. And it may 
be mentioned in this connection that the cords that bound him 
to the people of his early love were never broken. In later years, 
and even after he was permanently settled in a home of his own, 
still the place that gave him birth, the house in which his father 
dwelt, was the Mecca to which much of his tenderest thought 
was given, and toward which he often turned his face with 
unutterable yearnings. It was to him a joy, as through life it 



lSti2.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. Ill 



was a habit, in intervals of leisure, to make frequent jjilgriraages 
thither, and in the sanctum of the family circle to be a boy again. 

On the other hand, this journal revealed the ambitious spirit of 
the student, aspiring to distinction, and chafing under the dull 
routiue of duties which hindered him in his course. But the fire 
that burned amid his musings was a prophecy of the success he was 
yet to achieve. 

In the fall of 1852, at the age of twenty-two, when many young 
men wore already finishing their college course, Mr. Latham en- 
tered the University. At the close of the session he received his 
first and single diploma, in the school of Latin. In two years 
more, however, he had completed the course requisite for the high- 
est academic honor, and on the 29th June, 1850, he received the 
Degree of Master of Arts. 

During the sunmier, after his first year at College, Mr. 
Latham made a public profession of faith in tlie Lord Jesus, auil 
was baptized by the Rev. Travers Ilerndon, then pastor of several 
Baptist churches in Fauquier County. From this time his course 
was that cf an earnestly Christian man. Upon his return to the 
University he became a member of the students' prayer meeting, 
took an active part in its exercises, and amid the temptations pe- 
culiar to the Christian student at that time, his life was such as to 
commend the cause which he had espoused. It is but just to sav, 
then, that when he retired from his Alma Mater, he carried with 
him not simply the reputation of a talented and successful student, 
but the high regard which his simple and 2)ure life had won from 
his associates. From this time, however, a new development in 
his religious life has its date. ^Yith deeper and broader views of 
Christianity, and with a growing sense of obligation to God, he 
realized more and more the importance of engaging actively in His 
service. 

Having selected teaching as his profession, Mr. Latham 
became, in the following autumn, tutor in the family of the Hon. 
llobert E. Scott, of Fauquier.* Here he remained a year, still 
keeping up his habit of study, but devoting himself to general 
literature rather than to any special course. In the spring of 
1853 he removed to Washington City, when, in the fall, he was 
appointed Assistant Professor of Mathematics in Columbian Col- 

*This gentleman, himself a distinguished alumnus of the University, was the 
victim of one of the foulest murders that disgraced the Federal arms during; the 
lale war. 



112 ♦ THE TJNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. [-^pril, 

lege. This position he relaiued only until the following year, 
when the "E-ichmond Female Institute " Avas established, under 
tlie Presidency of Rev. Basil Manly, Jr., and Prof. Latham was 
elected to the chair of Natural Sciences. 

On the 2Gth of December, 1864, he was married to Miss Ida 
Bacon, eldest daughter of Rev. Joel S. Bacon, D. D., at that time 
President of Columbian College. 

At the close of the second session of the Richmond Institute, 
Prof. Latham resigned his position in order to take charge of the 
Male Academy at Talladega, Alabama, and shortly afterwards 
removed to that State. In 1858, after two years of succcssfLd 
teaching at Talladega, he Mas elected President of the Alabama 
Central Female College, located at Tuscaloosa, and accepting the 
office, again changed his place of residence. 

The cause of education was at this time attracting very general 
attention in the more Southern States, and schools and colleges 
were in a most flourishing condition. Those for young ladies, 
especially, were conducted on a larger scale and with more exten- 
sive a{)pointments than similar institutions in Virginia. Prof. 
Latham had already attained a fine position, and had won for 
himself in Alabama a reputation as an able instructor. The M'ay 
was now open to higher distinction, but that yearning for his 
native State which never becomes wholly extinct in the luart of 
a Virginian, led him to embrace, a short time previous to the war, 
an opportunity to return to the Old Dominion. Here, in connec- 
tion with his father-in-law, he established in the beautiful town 
of Warrenton, an Institute for young ladies, which at once took 
rank among the best in the State, and whose prosperity continued 
to increase until the opening of hostilities. 

In politics, Mr. Latham was an advocate of States' Rights, 
and conscientiously believing that these had been trampled upon, 
he came logically to favor the resumption of Virginia's original 
sovereignty. Ardently, then, did he second the first movement 
looking to this course, and from the very inception of hostilities 
he burned to be among those who took part in them. But the 
duties of a large school and the obligations to his patrons could 
not be thrust aside in a moment. As soon as these were discharged, 
he left the Institute buildings in Dr. Bacon's charge, and re- 
moving his family to the interior, that they might be safe from 
the incursions of the enemy, offered his service to the Government. 



18(52.] THE UNIVErvSITY MEMORIAL. 113 

Receiving an appointment as Lieutenant in the Engineer Corps, 
he took hasty leave of his friends, and hurried to report for duty 
on the Rapidan. It was not long, however, before, unused as he 
was to exposure, he contracted a severe cold, which necessitated 
his seeking an asylum with his uncle at Culpeper Court-House. 
His disease, instead of abating, assumed the form of typhoid 
pneumonia, and when his wife, who was speedily summoned, 
reached him, he had already become unconscious. Two weeks 
more closed the brief military career: weeks full of suflcring of 
body, during which, his mind apparently engaged with the idea 
that he was on active duty, he called frequently for his spurs that 
he might ride forth and join in the fray. 

Thus died, on the 29th of April, 1862, in the prime of life, a 
man whose enthusiastic devotion to his country and whose am- 
bitious love of his jjrofession promised usefulness for others and 
distinction for himself, — a man whose life's story, even thus briefly 
told, may be studied with profit by all who seek distinction in 
this world, or happiness in that to come. It is the imperfect 
miniature of one who, while daring to use the talents which God 
gave him, dared not, nor wished to withhold the praise due to 
the Giver. 

Many friends mourned his death, but upon none did the blow 
fall with such crushing weight as upon the heart-stricken widow 
and three fatherless children who gathered around the soldier's 
grave in the cemetery at Culpeper Court-House. 



RADFORD BROTHERS. 

Wm. M. Radford, B. A., 1st Lieut. Pulaski Rifles, 24th Virginia Infantry. 
John T. Radford, Lieut.-Colonel, 22d Virginia Cavalry. 

The Alumni of the University of Virginia have, of course, 
never constituted any considerable element of the Southern pop- 
ulation. Yet, representing as they do, the various States of the 
South, their views and actions may be taken as a fair sample of 
the temper and conduct of the masses. Their promptness to 
respond to the summons to arms was an index of the popular en- 
thusiasm in regard to tlie question of self-government; theil- long- 



114 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. |-May, 

continued fidelity to the cause which they espoused, was in keeping 
with a wide-spread conviction of duty and a stern purpose to 
hazard everything for it ; and the mortality in their numbers is 
only an illustration of what the people suffered, of the sacrifices 
which the masses made, and were willing to make, rather than 
resign into other hands the rights they had inherited, and which 
they believed the blood of their ancestors had rendered inalien- 
able. 

If then, in the limited class of men with whom this memorial 
volume has to do, we shall have to record nine instances of 
brothers, who were partners in death for their country's sake, such 
a record will suggest the costly sacrifice which the peoj)le made, 
and the sorrow that broods not at a single hearthstone only, but 
over all the land. 

John Taylor Radford and William Mozely Radford 
were the sons of Dr. John B. and Mrs. Elizabeth C. Radford, of 
Montgomery County, Virginia. John was born July 4, 1838, 
and was of a delicate constitution, which proved not only in youth, 
but in his maturer years, a serious hindrance to successful study. 
At the age of eighteen he became a student at the University, and 
continued in the academic course tliree sessions, graduating in 
Moral Philosophy and Political Economy. After leaving College 
he selected the profession of Law; and to fit himself for its duties, 
he attended the Law School of Judge Brokenbrough at Lexington, 
Va. But he had scarcely obtained his license to practice, when 
his services were demanded in another field. 

William Radford was born August 12, 1840. In the school 
of Franklin Minor, Esq., of Albemarle County, he laid the foun- 
dation of a classical education, and in the fall of 1857 he joined 
his brother at the University. He had then just completed his 
seventeenth year, but with marked ability he applied himself to 
study, and at once assumed the position which is readily accorded 
to men of talent at that institution. In the Jefferson Society, of 
which John also was a member, he was a vigorous debater ; and on 
its behalf he was, in the session of '59-60, one of the editors of the 
University Magazine. At the end of his third collegiate year he 
was graduated Bachelor of Arts, and with many pleasant memories 
of the University and the friends he had made there, he retired to 
his home, and soon after took charge of a plantation which his 
mother owned in Pulaski County. It was his plan to remain ou 



1802. 



THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 115 



the farm only long enough to recover his vigor of body, and then 
begin the study of law; but in a few months the country began to 
be agitated by the political excitement which speedily culminated 
in war. 

When the crisis came, and all true Southerners were called upon 
to define their position, these two young men did not hesitate to 
cast their lot with the land that gave them birth. In Mont- 
gomery County, John raised a company of infantry, and was 
elected Captain of it. In Pulaski, William was not behind his 
brother. Very soon after the secession of South Carolina he 
"took the stump," and began to urge upon the people to save the 
honor of Virginia by pursuing the same course. By the friends 
of this movement he was frequently invited to address the crowds 
that assembled to consider the great question of the day. Among 
the first companies ordered to the field was one from Pulaski, 
under Captain, afterwards General, Walker. The ladies, full of 
enthusiasm, had prepared a handsome flag for the " Pulaski boys," 
and William Radford was invited to present it on their behalf 
This he did in terms which secured the most complimentary ap- 
proval of the ladies, and won the applause of the large concourse 
of people. The presentation ceremonies over. Captain Walker's 
company formed a hollow square, and the orator of the occasion, 
" young in years and small of stature," called upon the crowd to 
come forward and volunteer for the defence of Virginia. Under 
the influence of his appeal, fifty names were enrolled in less than 
an hour, and an election of officers was immediately called for. 
Radford nominated his cousin, Mr. Bently, who had the advan- 
tage of a military education, and he was elected Captain. He 
himself was chosen 1st Lieutenant, and James Kent, another 
cousin, who died a few months afterwards, 2d Lieutenant. The 
company, when armed and equipped, was ordered to Lynchburg, 
where, with that under Captain John Radford, it formed part 
of the 24th Virginia Infantry, the first Confederate command of 
Jubal A. Early. This regiment belonged to the reserve at the 
battle of First Manassas, and was posted in tlie.rear of our right 
wing. Ere the close, however, of that memorable struggle, it was 
called to the extreme right of the enemy, and participated in that 
heroic attack which, winning the day, culminated in the total rout 
of the Federals. 

In the interval between the battle of the 21st July, 1861, and 



116 THE rKIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[May, 



the campaign on the Peninsula, the military life of the two 
brothers flowed on quite evenly. Its smooth current was broken 
only by a brief illness of the younger, which occurred about mid- 
Avinter, and compelled him to return home for about two weeks. 
At Yorktown John Radford's health was seriously aifected by 
the climate; when our forces retired towards Richmond, he was 
so ill as to have to be sent in an ambulance in advance of the 
regiment. On the morning of the 5th of May — the day of the 
Imttle of Williamsburg — after doing all that he could to minister 
to his comfort, AVilliam, with cheerful M-ords, took leave of him 
for the day; but as he was often delirious, he said nothing of an 
expected engagement. Soon after their parting, the regiment, 
which had already passed Williamsburg, was ordered back, and 
into battle. It was in the afternoon when the 24th Virginia and 
5th North Carolina were ordered to charge a redoubt in the edge 
of the Avoods, and opposite our extreme left. This point was held 
by Gen. Hancock, whose artillery thus played upon our left and 
centre. The path of the attacking Confederates lay across an 
open field, over which the leaden hail was flying, but they hesi- 
tated not to tread it. Unsupported, they dashed forward, but had 
not advanced far before Lieutenant Radford fell, shot through 
the breast, and died instantly. Those who saw him say that he 
was at the head of his company, waving his sword in the air and 
urging forward his men. The two regiments, of which Hancock 
afterwards said, " Immortal ought to be written on their banners," 
were hurled back, and their dead left on the field. There, among 
his fallen comrades, William Radford sleeps to-day, if buried 
at all, in an unmarked grave. Every efibrt was made to recover 
his body ; his father, and even his mother, visited the battle-ground 
in search of the beloved boy, but all in vain. "Let us hope, 
however," said the Avriter of an obituary notice, " that the enemy 
gave him decent burial, and that his finely-chiseled form rests in 
undisturbed repose beneath the soil stained by the rich blood he 
shed to free his country from oppression. During his last days, 
the chosen companions of his leisure moments were the Bible and 
Paradise Lost. Then may we not mingle the bright and holy 
radiance of Christian hope with the brilliant halo of military 
glory that rests upon his unknown grave ?" But simply because 
" we know not where they have laid him,'' his name and noble 



1SG2.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOKIAI^. 117 



qualities will be the more tenderly cherished; for even as one 
wrote of him in the years already past_, — 

" Sweet memory with immortelles 
Shall lioly Imnds employ, 
While sweet memorial song shall weep 
This bright, heroic boy." 

From Williamsburg Capt. Radford went to Montgomery, 
where he remained several weeks trying to recruit his feeble healtli 
and to recover his spirits, now broken by the loss of his brother, 
The first was accomplished, but until the day of his death he 
mourned, like Turner Ashby for Richard, the friend and compan- 
ion of his childhood and youth. When his health was restored 
he received an appointment as Major in the State Line, and served 
in this capacity for some months. He was then offered a commis- 
sion as Lieut.-Colonel of Cavalry, on condition he would raise a 
battalion in the Southwest. This he accomplished in a short 
time, and, uniting his force with that of Colonel Henry Bowen, 
they formed quite a large regiment — the 22d Virginia Cavalry. 
For six or eight months the 22d remained in the Southwest, and 
was busily engaged in repelling and making raids on the Tennes- 
see border. In May, 1864, just after the battle of New Market, 
with the rest of McCausland's brigade, it was ordered to the Val- 
ley. When Hunter, after defeating the small infantry force of 
Gen. W. E. Jones, at Piedmont, on the 5th of May, began his 
march upon Staunton and Lynchburg, this brigade, as is well 
known, was the only force in his front. And although too small 
to make any formal opposition, McCausland's command was all 
the while engaged in harassing and impeding the progress of the 
Federal army, and won for itself great credit by its vigilance and 
efficiency. Col. Radford, whose regiment formed the rear-guard, 
and was consequently next to the enemy, was highly complimented 
1 for his conduct during this campaign. 

When Hunter, pressed by Early, retreated from Lynchburg 
through Western Virginia, this cavalry command followed him as 
far as Salem, and then returned to join Early, who was hurrying 
down the Valley. Cavalry service suited tiie health of Colonel 
Radford ; health accompanied by the consciousness of having done 
one's duty, brings happiness, and so his spirits revived once more. 
His friends, too. began to entertain the feeling that he bore a 
charmed life, and to hope that, unhurt on a hundred fields, he 



118 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[May, 



would be spared till the end. In this, however, they were doomed 
to the sorest disappointment. After the eventful career with 
Early, in which he participated in engagements and skirmishes 
too numerous to mention, he received his death-wound at Cedar- 
ville, on the 12th of November, 1364. Here the cavalry were or- 
dered to charge what they supposed to be a brigade of the enemy ; 
the 21st and 22d regiments, only, obeyed the command, but so 
fierce was their onset that they broke through the opposing force, 
which proved to be a division, instead of a brigade, in ambuscade. 
Confident in their numbers, the i'oe re-formed, but a second and a 
third time the Confederates dashed upon them and pierced their 
lines. After the third charge the order was given to retreat, and 
as they turned to obey, Col. Radford received a mortal Avound in 
the side and fell from his horse. The ball penetrated his lungs 
and came out through the right breast. Some of his faithful men 
gathered around him, and would have attempted to bear him from 
the field, but he forbade the attempt, assuring them that he must 
soon die, and that the effort would certainly result in their capture. 

Late in the afternoon, a soldier, who had been unhorsed in the 
fight, and was concealing himself in some brushwood near him, 
without knowing it, heard some one groaning, and appi'oacihing 
the spot indicated by the sound, found Col. Radford prostrate on 
the earth. The latter asked who he was, and he replied, "I am a 
Confederate soldier." "I," said Col. Radford, "am a Confed- 
erate officer ; will you give me some water ? " The noble fellow 
filled his hat — he had nothing else — and the dying man drank 
freely and was refreshed. At his request, the soldier went to pro- 
cure aid at a house near by, but found it occupied by the enemy. 
Col. Radford then gave him his farewell message to his mother, 
and bade him make his escape. The message as delivered to Lieut. 
Kent, of the 22d, was in these words : — "Tell my mother that I am. 
dying, and that my last thoughts are of her. I die fighting for my 
country and in the discharge of my duty." 

It is thought that he died very soon after the soldier left him. 
Letters from the family that lived near by, stated that the body 
was carried to the house and buried by them — a lady reading the 
burial service at the grave. A few days after. Gen. Early sent a 
flag of truce and asked for the body, but the application was 
refused by the enemy, who even threatened with confiscation any 
citizen who might venture to remove it. 



1862] THE UNTYEESITY MEMORIAL. 119 

On the 20th of this month the officers of the 22d Cavalry, then 
in camp at Springfield, held a meeting to pay a tribute to their 
fallen commander. It was organized by calling Lieut. R. S. Hig- 
ginbothani to the chair, and appointing Lieut. Wm. P. Horton, 
Secretary. A committee, consisting of Capt. W. O. Moore, Lieut. 
R. S. McElgea, Lieut. G. M. Kent, and Adjt. C. W. Wyatt, was 
selected to draft suitable resolutions, which were unanimously 
adopted. Froui them we extract the following: — 

" Resolved 1st, That by the untimely death of Lieut. -Colonel 
John T. Radfoed, we have lost a faithful friend, our regiment 
and country a gallant and meritorious officer, and society one of 
its brightest ornaments. 

" 2d, That we deeply sympathize with the family of the deceased 
in their irreparable loss. To them we offer our kindest sympathy, 
and with them we will ever cherish the memory of the virtues and 
patriotism of our fellow-soldier." 

Some two months after the death of Colonel Radford — not- 
withstanding the cruel threat of the enemy — his remains were 
borne, in the silence of the night, to New Market, and thence to 
the family-seat in Montgomery. In the domestic circle there are 
tivo " vacant chairs," and many hearts, alas ! still desolate. 



WILLIAM SAMUEL SHIELDS, 

1st Lieutenant of Artillery, Army of the Mississippi. 

The parents of Wm. S. Shields were natives of Georgia. 
His father, Patrick Henry Shields, was a distinguished graduate 
of the University of that State; his mother, Mary Lumpkin, 
was a niece of the former Governor of that name. In 1838, Mr. 
Shields removed to Mississippi and settled as a planter. Here 
William was born on the 27th June, 1839. In 1841, after a 
brief illne.-s of congestive fever, the father died, at the early age 
of twenty-three, leaving a widow and two sons. Of these children 
the youngest died in 1856, near Memphis, Tenn., at the residence 
of his uncle, AVin. B. Hamlin, Esq. William was thus left, the 
only child of his widowed mother. 

At an early age he was placed at school in the village of Holly 



120 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[May, 



Springs, Miss., where under tlie care, first of the Rev. Dr. Hawks 
of the Episcopal Church, and afterwards of Mr. Whittemore, an 
English gentleman, subsequently Professor in the University of 
Mississippi, the foundation of an education was laid. In the 
foil of 1855, he entered the Sophomore class of the College of New 
Jersey, at Princeton, and graduated at that institution in June, 
1858. The following October he became a student at the Univer- 
sity of Virginia, and at the close of the session, graduated in the 
School of Moral Philosophy. 

With tall, commanding person, with handsome features, and 
open, frank countenance, he was altogether one of the finest- 
looking young men in College. His first effort as a debater on 
the floor of the Jefferson Society was a failure. Shields was 
laughed at, but, nothing discouraged, he declared that he meant 
to succeed. He persevered, and, as one of his cotemporaries 
testifies, " became a forcible, sensible, and not unpleasant speaker." 

At the close of his second session, he spent the vacation in 
Europe, but rdturned, pleased and profited, in time to be present 
at the opening of* the University in October, and devoted himself 
to the study of Law. Before the session closed, however, he had 
shut up his books, returned home, and entered the service of the 
Southern Confederacy. 

When he reached Memphis, the volunteer companies of the city 
had already been organized and ordered to the field of duty. 
With his usual determination, he repaired at once to the head- 
quarters of the Tennessee troops, and enlisted in an infantry com- 
pany then known as " The Beauregards." It was not long before 
he attracted the attention of Col. McCown, afterwards Major- 
General of Artillery, through whose influence he received a com- 
mission as Second Lieutenant of Artillery, and was ordered to 
the recruiting service in East Tennessee. 

The character of the duty thus imposed upon him will be better 
understood when it is remembered that thi.s section of the State 
Avas a very hot-bed of Unionism, the result of the combined in- 
fluence of "Johnson, the politician, Brownlow, the parson, and 
Nelson, the poet." The feeling of hostility to the Southern cause 
often culminated iu deeds of violence, thus rendering it hazardous 
in the extreme for one to proclaim himself an advocate of Seces- 
sion. For successful service in such a country, eminent prudence 
and discretion were needful. The young recruiting-officer was 



18(52 J THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 121 

not a trained diplomatist, but a student, fresh from influences 
which, engendering independence of thought and freedom of 
expression,, were apt to render one impatient of opposition. 

But with that spirit of self-reliance which also is fostered at the 
school he had just left. Lieutenant Shields adapted himself, in 
an admirable manner, to the circumstances of his position. In a 
few weeks he returned to headquarters with a capital company of 
young men from East Tennessee, and, in acknowledgment of the 
efficient service thus rendered, he was immediately advanced to 
the rank of first Lieutenant of Artillery. 

The future was now opening propitiously. At Corinth he had 
already attracted the attention of his superior officers, and even 
of Gen. Polk. Everything promised usefulness and distinction, 
when suddenly, while on duty in the trenches, on the 25th May, 
1862, he was stricken down with congestion of the brain, and 
died after a few hours' illness. 



EDMOND PENDLETON MAJOR, 

Adjutant, 26th Alabama Infantry. 

Edmond Pendleton Major was one of four brothers, all of 
whom, except the killed and maimed, were at the post of duty at 
the time of the surrender. He was the son of William and 
Edmonia Pendleton Major, of Culpeper County, Virginia, and 
was born January 1, 1843. He belonged to the eighth genera- 
tion of tlie Major family from England; was great-nephew to 
Governor Barbour and Judge P. P. Barbour, and, more distantly- 
related to President Monroe. 

The Majors were an agricultural people, not ambitious of politi- 
cal distinction, though they frequently filled, by appointment, and 
for many years at a time, the minor offices of the State. Belong- 
ing to the old Whig party, they opposed secession and the dis- 
ruption of the Federal Government. But when the necessity 
came, and Virginians must needs fight for Virginia or against 
her, the blood of two great grandsires who had taken part in the 
Revolution, asserted its ancient right, and the sons entered the 
service of the Confederacy. 



122 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[May, 



At the opening of the war, Edmond, having previously taken 
a course at Hampden Sidney College, was spending his second 
session at the University of Virginia, as an academic student. 
Tall and athletic, measuring full six feet and weighing one hun- 
dred and seventy-five pounds, he was also intelligent, and his 
fondness of books had continued, almost a passion, from the time 
of his learning to read at the age of four. 

During the month of June, 1861, a company of "University 
Volunteers" was formed, under the command of Captain J. 
Parran Crane, and Edmond, apparently after some hesitation, due 
doubtless to his uncertainty in regard to the approval of his 
parents and to his fears of the possible effect of such a course upon 
the feeble health of his mother, joined this company. That he 
was all aglow with the spirit that possessed the community at the 
time, and against which neither students nor Professors were 
2)roof, is evident from a letter which he wrote to his father imme- 
diately after his enlistment. "The Washington College boys," 
said he, " are in the field ; so are the Emory and Henry boys. 
The Hampden Sidney students passed through last Saturday ; it 
is a fine company, and they are well equipped. Dr. Atkinson, 
President of the College, is their Captain. But ours will be the 
finest company ever sent out, and composed of the flower of Vir- 
ginia and all the South." The same letter discovers the fact that 
he did not enlist under the simple impulse of the moment, but 
that he had calmly debated the question of personal responsibility. 
"Duty calls, and I must go. All my comrades are going; why 
should I remain, while they are fighting for our liberties? If I 
have done wrong, you and mother must forgive me, because I 

think it my duty to go I will do all I can to assist 

my country, relying on God, the Protector of us all; and if I sur- 
vive the contest, I will have the gratification of knowing that I 
have been one of her defenders. If I am to fall, I can say, ' Thy 
will, O Lord, be done, and not mine.' In Him alone do I put my 
trust." 

After asking, in the letter from which these extracts arc made, 
for other articles pertaining to the soldier's outfit, that he might 
be thoroughly equipped, he adds ; " Tell mother to get me a 
small Bible or Testament, which is the most important of all." 

About the 1st of July, the "University Volunteers," num- 
bering sixty-five muskets, were ordered to the hard service in 



iSflo.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOKIAL. 123 

Western Virginia — hard even for Confederate soldiers, at that 
period of the war, when, for many days at a time, to say nothing 
of tent or shelter, they liad no food except the green corn which 
they plucked from the growing fields. Of this, young Major 
afterwards declared to his father that he had eaten ten ears at a 
time. During the winter cmpaign, the company suffered im- 
mensely, and finally, reduced by sickness and battle to eleven men, 
was disbanded by order of the commanding General. Edmund 
returned to his home in Culpepsr, sick Avith jaundice, which 
terminated in typhoid fever. From this he had not fully recov- 
ered when Gen. Johnston, breaking up winter-quarters at Centre- 
ville, took up the line of march towards the Rappahannock. But 
when the brigade of Gen. Wilcox reached Culpeper, he attached 
himself, as an independent volunteer, to the 26th Alabama Infantry, 
then commanded by Col. Ed. A. O'Neal, and M^ith it marched to 
Yorktown. - "During the bombai'dment of that place," wrote Col. 
O'Neal, "he displayed coolness and courage, and was faithful in 
the discharge of all his duties." Subsequently, he was made 
Adjutant of the 26th Alabama, and marching with it from York- 
town to Richmond, distinguished himself for gallantry at the 
battle of Seven Pines, from which he came out unharmed. 

His death, after so many perils had been safely passed through, 
was singular and touching. The fighting, except now and then a 
random shot, was over for the day, and the regiment had stacked 
arms for the night. He was lying down on his right side, his 
head resting on his right liand and elbow, talking with Colonel 
O'Neal, when a rifle shell passed between the latter and the tree 
against which he was leaning, stunning him, wounding Lieutenant 
Halsey, and killing the Adjutant instantly, without even breaking 
the skin. "He was brave and cool in battle, moral and correct 
in his deportment, faithful and true in the discharge of his duty," 
said one who saw him fia^ht and saw him die. 



JAMES R. HARMANSON, 

1st Lieutenant, Company F, 4th Virginia Battalion. 

James R. Harmaxsox was born in Northampton county, 
Virginia, on the second day of October, 1830. He was the son 
of William Harmanson and Margaret, his wife, who before her 



124 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[May, 



marriage was Miss INIargaret Mapp. His paternal ancestors were 
among the first settlers, and appear at an earlj date in the records 
of Northampton county. Among his relations have been and are 
many of the most intelligent and worthy citizens of the county. 
The family name of his mother also appears at an early period in 
the ancient records of Northampton. The father and mother of 
Lieutenant Harmaxson both survive him, and have already 
passed the allotted threescore and ten years. Also survive him 
two sisters — Virginia, the widow of William Leatherberry, late 
of the county of Northampton ; and Elizabeth, the wife of David 
A. Diinton, a worthy and esteemed farmer of the same county. 
The father of Lieutenant Harmanson has spent his entire life in 
agricultural pursuits, and has always been highly respected as an 
upright citizen and exemplary member of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church. 

James Harmanson received his early education in the private 
schools of his native county. At the age of sixteen he entered 
Delaware College, and pursued his studies there for two collegiate 
years. In October, 1849, he entered the University of Virginia 
as a student, and continued in this institution for three sessions, 
until he was prepared to enter upon the practice of the law. At 
the University, during his first session, he became a member of 
the Washington Society, and was regarded by his fellow-members 
as a young man of quick perception, cultivated taste, and as a ready 
debater, which characteristics were more fully develojied when he 
entered upon the active pursuits of his profession and became 
somewhat of a politician. Upon returning home from the Uni- 
versity he located in Northampton, and commenced the practice of 
his profession. At an early age he espoused the States' Eights 
school in politics, and soon after the organization of the Know- 
Nothing party, he became an active politician. 

In the spring of 1857, by a nomination from the Democratic 
party, he became a candidate in Northampton for the House of 
Delegates of Virginia, and although in a county which had, at the 
then late election for Governor, given a large Know-Nothing 
majority, after an active canvass in which party prejudices and 
feelings were perhaps as violent as at any period of the State's 
history, he was defeated only by a small majority. 

On the tenth day of June, 1858, he was married to Miss 
Tabitha Snead, daughter of Lewis L. and Esther Snead, of the 



jg,.2-j THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 125 

county of Accomack ; and soon after this event, he moved to the 
county of Accomack to live and engage in the pursuit of his pro- 
fession. The fruits of this marriage were a daughter, Margaret 
Esther, who was born April 27th, 1859, and Lewis W., born Marcli 
14th, 1861. 

Fully imbued with the doctrine of State Sovereignty, and as a 
natural consequence, of Secession, James Harmanson was among 
the first to draw his sword in defence of the rights and honor of 
his native State. Soon after the passage of tlie ordinance of 
Secession by the Convention of Virginia, and even before its 
ratification by the people, it was deemed necessary by the wisest 
and most prudent men on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, that 
preparation should be made for its defence, cut off as it was by 
the Chesapeake Bay from all aid or assistance from the Western 
Shore. The militia was fully organized and officered, volunteer 
companies were formed, and in the month of June, the Executive 
Council appointed by the Convention of Virginia, composed of 
Gen. R. E. Lee and others, advised the organization of a volun- 
teer regiment for home defence, and commissioned the officers to 
command the same. Mr. Harmanson was one of the most active 
in this work of preparation. At one time he held a commission 
as Captain in the 2d Regiment of Virginia Militia, and afterwards, 
he was engaged in the organization of an artillery company, to be 
used in defence of the peninsula. During the period that elapsed 
from the time the first steps were taken for defence, until General 
Lock wood, with a strong force of well disciplined Federal troops, 
was sent by General John A. DIx to conquer and subjugate the 
two Eastern Shore counties, he was one of the most active and 
energetic in their defence. 

On the fifteenth of November, 1861, Brigadier-General PI. H. 
Lock wood, having assembled in and around New Town, Worcester 
county, Maryland, over eight thousand troops, well armed and 
equipped, the very flower of the Federal army in obedience to 
orders from General Dix, forwarded through the picket line his 
memorable proclamation, setting forth the utter futility of an 
attempt at resistance by the two Eastern Shore counties, cut off as 
they were from any hope of supplies or reinforcement, and calling 
upon those in arms to disperse and return to their homes, prom- 
ising protection both of person and property to those who thus 
availed themselves of the benefits of his proclamation. How 



126 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[May. 



strictly this was adhered to, General Loekvvood's subsequent history 
of perfidy will fully illustrate. Upon the reception of this proc- 
lamation a council of officers was held, and finding that further 
resistance was impossible, it was determined to disband the reg- 
iments and leave the individuals free to act as their judgment 
might dictate. Mr. Harmanson was not long in making his 
election, and determined to bid farewell to home, wife, children, 
and family, and to risk his fate with the cause he had so ardently 
espoused. With this detemiination, in the latter part of No- 
vember, 1861, in a small open boat, with a few friends, in the 
night time, he crossed the Chesapeake Bay, and running the 
blockade, landed at Gloucester Point. It was but a short time 
after this, before many of the scattered soldiers who had volun- 
tarily made their escape from the Eastern Shore, formed themselves 
into a volunteer company, and in this company, commanded by 
Captain John White, James Harmanson was made 1st Lieuten- 
ant. He was stationed at Gloucester Point until its evacuation in 
the spring of 1862, when, along with the rest of the army, this com- 
pany fell back to Richmond, where it was incorporated with the 
4th Virginia Battalion. 

At the battle of Seven Pines, on Saturday, the 31st of May, 1862, 
while gallantly leading his company to victory, and at the very 
moment when the enemy were driven from their camps, and the 
ground occupied by t'he Confederate troops. Lieutenant Harman- 
son fell, his brain having been pierced by a minie ball, sent from 
the retreating foe. The last words he was ever known to utter 
were, " Forioard boys ! if we fall, we die patriots." 

Upon the field where he so nobly fell, with his blanket for a 
■winding-sheet and coffin, he was buried by his comrades. The 
stake which was placed at his head having been removed, his 
friends could never after identify the spot, and his remains now 
lie where they were placed by his gallant comrades, amidst the 
din and smoke of battle. 

To show the noble spirit which actuated this patriot soldier, 
from his last letter to his now bereaved widow I take the follow- 
ing extract. He says :— " I have heard the booming of artillery 
and the whistle of shell for fifteen days. I see the Yankee lines 
every day, and have seen their pickets and ours fighting for one 
week. I had rather be here .to-day and stand erect amid all the 
storms and clouds of war that may befall my lot; than to be the 



18,;2.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 127 

despot's slave. I feel that I have left wife, children, father, 
mother, sisters, relatives, friends, and the graves of my forefathers, 
and remembering this, ray path is straight, cheerfully to death or 
gloriously to victory." 

" Though foul are the drops that oft distil 
On the field of warfare, blood like this 
For liberty shed so holy is, 
It would not stain tlie purest rill 
That sparkles among the Bowers of Bliss ! 
Oh ! if there be, on this earthly sphere, 
A boon, an offering. Heaven holds dear, 
'Tis the last libation liberty draws 
From the heart that bleeds and breaks in her cause." 

The widow and children of Lieutenant Harmaxson still survive 
him, but his death so affected his widow, that after a short time, 
overcome by grief, her mind gave way, and she is now a complete 
wreck, unable to take care of the little ones left to her charge, and 
herself dependent upon the good offices of friends. 



WILLIAM T. MORRILL 

Color Corporal, 17tli Virginia Infantry. 

William Todd Moeiiill, the only son of William and Mary 
Morrill, was born in Alexandria, Virginia, June 7th, 1838. In 
consequence of the death of his father in 1843, he Avas left at a 
tender age to the guidance of his mother. He spent most of his 
boyhood in Alexandria. He was for a time at the boarding-school 
of the Rev. Mr. Simpson, in Georgetown, D. C. One of his 
teachers in Alexandria was the Rev. Mr. Kirk, with whom he 
was on terms of friendship and intimacy. He assisted Mr. Kirk 
in instructing the younger pupils, and the two used to spend their 
holidays together in hunting and fishing. Morrill was, even 
in his boyhood, liable to violent attacks of neuralgia, which 
interfered much with his habits of study. 

In the fall of 1856 he entered the University of Virginia, and 
while there, a great change occurred in his spiritual condition. 
Before this he had been a sprightly, manly, and thoughtless youth, 
but now he saw the folly of his former ways, and determined to 
give himself to God. The University has been, by some, consid- 



128 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[May, 



ered the nursery of infidelity, but tliis is a mistake ; it was per- 
haps intended by its founders to be a seminary for intellectual 
training merely, but, thanks to a merciful Providence, it has become 
an institution where religion is honored and taught. While there 
is no theological school in the University, there is a Chap'lain 
who holds services once a day on week days and several times on 
Sundays. There are several churches in the vicinity. Many of 
the professors are pious men ; many of the students are professors 
of religion, and some of them are very active in holding prayer- 
meetings, in circulating religious reading-matter, and in Christian 
intercourse, working by word and example. For many years 
there has been an uncommon degree of religious interest and 
earnestness at the University. 

Morrill took part in these religious activities, as he had been 
confirmed by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Potter, of New York, while on 
a visit to a sister who lived at White Plains. 

His health was delicate and his eyes weak from neuralgia while 
at the University, yet he was able to graduate in three schools 
during the two sessions of his attendance. He left the University 
in the summer of 1858. 

The following fall he commenced the career of a teacher in the 
house of Mr. James AVilliam Mason, of Clarke County, Va. 
While here he began to study with a view to entering the Min- 
istry of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He taught for two 
years, but his health did not improve, and he spent the winter of 
1860-61 at home, in Alexandria, hoping that he would be able to 
harden his constitution, so that he might rid himself of his old foe, 
neuralgia. 

When the War of Secession began, he was a member of the mili- 
tary comjjany called the " Alexandria Riflemen." This com- 
pany was composed of some of the most respectable young men in 
Alexandria ; its Captain was Morton Marye, who M'as afterwards 
Colonel of the 17th Virginia Infantry, and who lost a leg at the 
second battle near Manassas. 

When the State of Virginia passed the Ordinance of Secession, 
the "Riflemen" were called out to do guard and picket duty in 
and around Alexandria. On the 24th day of May, 1861, at day- 
light, Morrill was on guard at Cazenove's wharf, opposite the 
point where the United States steamer Pawnee was lying at anchor 
in the Potomac river; he was one of the first to observe the 



ly^o.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 129 

advance of the Federal troops, and it is said that he fired the first 
shot as tlie boats full of men approached the shore of Virginia. 
On the 23d day of May, the people of Virginia by a large ma- 
jority had ratified the Ordinance of Secession passed by the Con- 
vention, and this advance was delayed until the result of the elec- 
tion was known. 

Morrill's company retired along with others to IManassas 
Junction, where it was made a part of the 17th Virginia Infantry. 
This company was engaged in tlie action of the 18th Jr.ly, and its 
members, generally, showed that they were gallant patriots. On 
the memorable 21st of July, the "Riflemen" Avere also under fire. 
This company spent the fall and winter in camp and in doing 
picket duty, and in the next spring marched to Richmond and 
formed part of Johnston's army in the Peninsula. The hardships 
and privations of the winter had been great ; but during the win- 
ter, while the 17th Virginia was near Centreville, Fairfox County, 
a party of six cf the "Riflemen" built a hut; Morrill was one 
of the six. Here they had daily family prayer. Since the war, two 
of Morrill's old comrades in arms wrote to his sister that the 
uprightness and consistency of his conduct there, had led them to 
see the truth as it is in Jesus, and both are now communicants of 
the Episcopal Church. 

In the spring of 1862, he was with the regiment. He had 
been married on the 12th of October, in the preceding fall, to 
Miss Laura Mason, daughter of J. "Wm. Mason, Esq., of Clarke 
County, Va., but he had left all that makes earth dear, for the 
sake of duty. . On the bloody field of Seven Pines he received 
two serious wounds. He was cared for with tenderness by old 
Alexandria friends residing in Richmond, but he died June 11th, 
a few days after receiving his wounds. 

We regret that we have not been able to find any letters writ- 
. ten by Morrill, so that we migiit thereby gain more insight into 
Lis inner feelings. He Avas naturally rather reserved, as his sister 
informs us, and we must form our estimate of him from his actions. 
\Vc know this, that in the latter years of his life he inspired all 
his acquaintances with respect for his intelligence, cliaracter and 
courage. If he had been permitted to live here, we believe that 
he would have been a highly honored and useful man ; as he has 
been taken away by a wise Providence, we should emulate his 
example. He was a faithful Christian, a dutiful citizen, an aflfec- 
9 



130 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[May. 



tionate son and brother, a tender husband ^ a warm and generous 
friend. This is the testimony of those who knew him best. 

He has done the M^ork which was appointed for him, and he now 
rests from his labors ; his works do follow him. Let us hope that 
the brave men who knew him in the army, and those who may 
glance at this short notice of him, may be led to see that it was 
religion which made Morrill what he was, and to determine to 
find joy and peace in believing. 

He was resigned and peaceful in prospect of death. If he had 
lived, he would jirobably have entered the ministry of the Church 
on earth ; but he has been early removed to the ministry and wor- 
ship of the Church in Paradise. 

The following tribute is from the gallant Colonel Morton 
Marye, who succeeded Colonel M. D. Corse in command of the reg- 
iment, when the latter was promoted to Brigadier-General : — 
"Wm. Morrill was greatly esteemed and beloved by both 
officers and men of the regiment, for his cheerful and conscientious 
performance of duty, and courteous and kindly bearing towards 
all. Though exceedingly amiable and gentle, he was proverbially 
brave. In his official report of the battle of Seven Pines, in which 
Morrill received his mortal wound. Colonel Corse thus compli- 
mented his gallantry : — 

" ' In the advance into the enemy's camp, Color Corporal 
Morrill was struck down, wounded in three places, and rose 
upon his elbow to cheer the men forward ; the colors Avere caught 
by Captain Raymond Fairfax, Company I, and handed to Color 
Corporal Diggs, who instantly fell wounded ; they were then taken 
by Private Harper, Company E, who retained them until the 
close of the day.' 

" The regiment, at the time Morrill was wounded, was under 
a terrible fire of musketry, shell and canister, and lost seventy 
men killed and wounded in three or four minutes. His heroic 
behavior in this trying situation was long afterwards the theme 
of conversation with his comrades who had witnessed it." 



18e2_-| THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 131 



GUSTAVUS BOARDMAN MASTIN, 

Captain, Huntsville Guards, 4th Alabama Infantry. 

Among the thousands of " unrecorded dead " who, during the 
late war, cheerfully laid their lives upon their country's altar, are 
many heroes, unknown to fame, whose names, not blazoned upon 
the historic page, not carved upon the enduring granite, still live 
among the precious memories of a few loving hearts. GuSTAVUS 
BoARDMAN Mastin was uouQ the less a hero because he did not 
startle the world by his brilliant deeds — because he was content 
quietly and unostentatiously to do his duty to his country, shrink- 
ing; from rather than courtino; observation. 

He w^as born at Huntsville, Alabama, on the third day of 
March, 1838. In a land whose peace was not disturbed by the 
most distant mutterings of war, whose prosperity was not clouded 
by even an anticipation of the terrible desolations which were to 
sweep over all its breadth, he passed his boyhood and youth in the 
quiet pursuit of an education whicli should fit hira for the profes- 
sion of his choice. Prepared by the tuition of Dr. C G. Smith to 
enter College with advantage, he became a student at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia in October, 1856. During his second session 
a malignant fever made its appearance in the University, scatter- 
ing the students and temj)orarily suspending the institution. Be- 
fore it was considered safe to return, young Mastin had thrown 
himself with all his energy into the study of the law, which he 
prosecuted vigorously until he was prepared to enter upon its 
practice. 

Standing upon the threshold of life, an ardent lover of the pro- 
fession which he had chosen, with the promise of both distinction 
and emolument, a bright future seemed to open before him. But 
suddenly this pleasant day-dream was broken by the cry "■ To 
arms ! ", that was heard throughout the land. Educated for the 
arts of peace, he must now gird himself for the battle-field; nur- 
tured in the quiet home-circle, he must go forth into the restless 
life of the camp, exchanging the quiet round of professional duties 
and the strife of eloquence in the forum, for the din and detail of 
war and the shouts of contending armies. In response to the call 
for troops, the company of the "Huntsville Guards" was 



132 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL [.May, 

jiromptly organized — chiefly through tlie exertions of his friend, 
flames Camp Turner, and liirnself, — and he was unanimously elected 
to its Cajitaincy. But wholly inexperienced in the arts of war, and 
accustomed to defer to, rather than command others, he modestly 
declined a position whose responsibilities he imagined he could 
not meet, and prevailed upon the company to elect a more expe- 
rienced officer. This done, he was made 1st Lieutenant. 

Immediately after the fall of Sumpter, the Huntsville Guards 
left for the field ; but before they reached the army, they were met 
by several other Alabama companies, and with them were em-, 
bodied into the 4th Alabama Regiment. Of this regiment, the 
Captain of "the Guards," Egbert J. Jones, was elected Colonel, 
and in consequence, Lieutenant Mastin Avas advanced to the posi- 
tion he had so recently declined. 

The first experience of real war of the 4th Alabama was on the 
historic field of first Manassas. Its conspicuous gallantry in that 
fearful struggle needs not to be spoken of in this brief paper. 
How firmly it held the post of honor, how lavishly it poured forth 
its blood, how sadly its thinned ranks closed up, a mere shadow 
of its former self, when the day was Avon, history has often told, 
and will tell again. It was here that Captain Mastin first 
learned the nature of the duties and responsibilities that were laid 
upon him. He had not sought office, least of all the highest in 
Jiis company ; but now that it Avas laid upon him, he did not slirink 
from its duties nor transfer its responsibilities to others. Looking 
them steadily in the fi\ce, he ])repared himself to fulfill the one 
and meet the other. The feeling of unfitness and this conscien- 
tious devotion to duty developed the traits that singularly fitted 
him for the position to Avhich he had been called. The young- 
civilian became at once a veteran soldier, and the modest retiring 
man was transformed into the officer Avhose administration, blend- 
ing authority Avith gentleness, firmness Avith courtesy, insured 
obedience rather by regard for the officer than by the respect due 
his office. 

From this time until the close of his life his record is in keeping 
with Avhat Ave have said, — the faithful and unswerving discharge 
of duty. Through all the blood and carnage of the battle-field, 
through the toil of weary marches, through the loneliness of the 
night-watch, and the exhaustion of Avasting sicknesses, he kept his 
eye steadily fixed upon the goal which, in his true Southern heart. 



1862.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 133 

he believed he saw before him in the distance. For this he was 
content to do and to bear, if only that goal might be reached. He 
was mercifully permitted to die without a suspicion that his hopes 
were but a dream, and his country's struggle a vain effort to be 

free ! 

At the battle of Seven Pines, Captain Mastin's Company was 
held in reserve, but in an exposed position. While the contest 
was raging, a shell exploded near by and wounded him severely. 
Order was given for the company to take another position ; when 
this was done, a private rioldier, who was devotedly attached to 
liim, sought permission to remain with him and remove him to the 
field-hospital. The request was peremptorily denied, on account 
of the danger to which the soldier would be exposed. This un- 
selfishness probably cost Captain Mastin his life. Had he been 
attended to immediately, he might have been saved ; but when he 
was removed from the field a few hourg afterwards, he was ex- 
hausted from the loss of blood, and died in the hospital under the 
examination of his wounds. His remains were taken to Peters- 
burg by the same faithful private, and deposited in the vault of his 
ancestors. 

His life was cut off — not blighted ; sacrificed — not lost. 

" They are not dead wlio sleep in honored graves ; 

Those lives not lost for home and country given : 
The patriot's blood is not poured out in vain ; 

It's cry, like that of Abel, pierces Heaven." 



J. LAWRENCE MEEM, 

Captain and Adjutant-General, Garland's Brigade. 

This noble young man, while gallantly leading a portion of our 
forces in the battle of Seven Pines, on Saturday, May 31st, 1862, 
received about six o'clock in the evening a mortal wound, of 
which he instantly died. It was impossible in the confusion of 
that great battle-day to bring his body from the field, and a few 
friends, during the night, carefully wrapping it in the simple 
habiliments of a soldier, and hastily digging a grave with their 
bayonets, laid the precious relic under the very breastworks of the 



134 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[May, 



enemy, which, in part by his valor, had been taken. There they 
left him, 

" Like a warrior taking liis rest, 
With his martial cloak around him." 

J. Lawrence Meem was the youngest son of John G. and 
Eliza C. Meera, born in the city of Lynchburg, on the 2d April, 
LS36, and at his death, aged a few days over twenty-six years. 
In childhood he was the darling of his parents, early exhibiting 
those traits of gentleness, respect, and filial reverence which sit so 
gracefully on the young, and are the germ of solid worth in 
niaturer life. After the usual preparatory studies of the grammar 
school, he entered the Virginia Military Institute in July, 1853, 
where he spent several years, earning golden opinions from its 
Professors, and, in an unusual degree, enjoying the love and 
respect of his fellow-students. In July, 1856, having successfully 
mastered the subjects taught in that institution and received his 
diploma, he returned home to take his place in the great drama 
of life among men. 

His mind w^as sound, practical and discriminating; his judg- 
ment of men and things excellent; his education not merely in 
the routine of scholastic studies, but varied by other and useful 
reading — sometimes historical, sometimes polite, but all of a 
nature to improve and elevate him morally and mentally. 

He was of fine personal appearance, a model of manly beauty, 
of manners gentle and winning, of temper even and generous, of 
taste most refined, fond of music and flowers, an ardent admirer 
of the gentler sex, a warm friend, a true-hearted Virginian. 
These are not mere words of eulogy, they describe what Laav- 
RENCE Meem was. Alas ! alas ! that such a man should fall, 
dying doubly, because dying early. 

In 1858, anxious to expand his mind and increase his store of 
knowledge, he made a tour of a few months through England and 
Franco, and then proceeded to Brazil, where he remained a con- 
siderable time, finding employment in the engineer department of 
the Don Pedro II. Railroad. For this service his knowledge of 
mathematics and singular skill as a draughtsman eminently fitted 
him. In the latter department he Avas almost unrivalled ; the writer 
has had occasion to examine and admire some of the products of his 
hand, and learns he was often called on by his Generals and 



l8g2_-[ THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 135 

superiors for drafts and maps of battles, and of the latter lie has 
seen his map of the battle of Bull Run, which for beauty of execu- 
tion and accuracy of description, he believes, cannot be excelled. 
It called forth praise from all who saw it, and Major-General 
Longstreet, with his own hand, wrote upon its face an official 
approval. 

He was a close observer of passing events. During his sojourn 
abroad, he wrote a series of letters to his father, which, though 
not intended for the press, were published and read with great 
interest. They were filled with apt descriptions of the novel 
scenes he witnessed in the Old World, and faithful historical 
allusions, and interspersed with moral reflections indicating a 
chaste and pure heart and elevated mind. 

Returning from Rio after an absence of nearly a year, lie en- 
tered tiie University of Virginia in tlie fall of 1858, and devoted 
himself during that session to the study of general literature. 

He was fond of the fine arts, and besides being a devotee of 
music from others, himself performed Avell on several instruments. 
He had a taste for collecting articles of vcrtu, brought a large col- 
lection of curiosities from Rio, and had amassed a number of 
antique coins and other rare things, making a little cabinet in 
which he took a deep interest, and which is now a treasure beyond 
all price to his parents. 

To the last hour of life he remembered tiie Divine injunction, 
" Honor thy father and mother," and no son was ever more blessed 
in turn with that most beautiful of earthly affections, parental 
love. He was faithful and true in his friendships, of excellent 
business habits, and in every pecuniary transaction " an honest 
man." 

When the war broke out, he was among the first to take up arms 
in defence of our homes and freedom. On the 23d of April, 1861, 
he entered the service as Orderly Sergeant of the Home Guard, 
tiien commanded by Captain Garland, who, on his promotion to 
the rank of Colonel, made him Adjutant of the regiment. He 
held this office till Colonel G. was, after the battle of Williams- 
burg, made a Brigadier, and was then appointed Adjutant- 
General of the brigade. Nobly filling the duties of this post, he 
perished. 

From the day he entered the service, his soul seemed to be given 
up to the cause of his country. He was always at the post of duty, 



136 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[May, 



in summer or in winter, in sunshine or in storm, never having 
been absent except on a brief visit liome to witjiess the interment 
of a favorite sister. 

His gallantry was conspicuous in the battles of Bull Run and 
First Manassas, at Drains ville, and at Williamsburg. On the 
morning of the battle of Seven Pines, he rose bright and cheerful 
and well ; he spent the day in the thickest of the fight, cheering our 
men and sharing their hardships and dangers, having two horses 
killed under him. Towards its close, when inside the enemy's 
breastworks, from which they had been driven, he was pierced 
by one of their balls and fell dead. 

. Amid the stirring scenes of camps and marches and battles, in 
which he spent his last year, this exemplary young man did not 
forget his duty to his God. In a letter from an officer of high 
rank, who had had constant means of observing him, written 
since his death to a very dear friend, the following tribute Avas 
paid him: — 

" I must tell you with what beautiful consistency my gallant 
comrade each night drew out his Testament and reverently read a 
chapter before retiring to rest. The regularity and feeling with 
which this was done, in the camp, on the picket, in the very 
presence of the enemy, his remarkable purity of character (almost 
womanlike), and frequent expressions of his, inspire me with hope 
and consolation. 

" I have slept, sat, ridden, dwelt continually with my poor 
friend for the last fourteen months, and shall hereafter think of 
him as a Bayard ' sans peur et sans reproche.' His appearance 
at Williamsburg and in the recent fight was singular, almost 
supernatural, and his bearing magnificent. I felt intensely proud 
of him. At the moment of his fall, his praises were upon every 
lip, and now he is always spoken of as the gallant Captain Meem." 

Most tenderly is his memory cherished by father, and mother, 
and sister, and brothers, and kindred, and friends; aye, and by 
one more dear than friend. 



igyo.j THE UInIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 137 

WILLIAM C. CARR. 

Lieutenant, Co. B, 8th Vii'ginla Infantry, 

William Caldwell Caer, only son of Caldwell and Cor- 
nelia Reynolds Carr, was born in Upperville, Fauquier County, 
Virginia, March 20, 1839. His mother died in his infancy ; his 
father survived her sixteen years, realizing in his son all that a 
father's heart could wish. Willie passed his childhood in the 
j)lace of his nativity, and it was in the Upperville Academy that 
the writer first knew him, and formed an attachment for him that 
lasted until the day of his death. We were intimate friends at 
school, and as room-mates we passed together the session of 1858-59 
— our first and his last, — at the University of Virginia. One would 
hardly imagine that the boy of such attractive and gentle, yet 
lively manner, and such high moral character, had not enjoyed a 
mother's tender watch-care. His cheerful, happy temperament, 
with a good degree of humor, made him a general favorite with 
his companions. He was quick to observe any peculiarity of 
character or person, and to dub the possessor with a nickname at 
once so apt and ludicrous that the bare mention of it would excite 
merriment; but it was always done with such manifest sweet 
temper and good-humor that he never made an enemy or estranged 
a friend. Nor was he any less a favorite with his teachers. 
It is true that he was wanting in that ambition to excel which is 
generally necessary to induce in boys the close and diligent ap- 
plication so i)leasing to a teacher; and sometimes when our Prin- 
cipal, a terror to evil-doers, was ready to vent his wrath upon 
Willie for neglecting proper preparation for class, his gentle and 
respectful bearing, very different from the calm indifference that 
generally provokes a storm, would appease him, and, the sunshine 
of his temper dispelling the gathering clouds, teacher and pupil 
always parted as good friends. 

It is well to notice, here, the absence of ambition referred to 
above. It was not that he did iiot appreciate the importance of 
improving the present time, for he was unquestionably a good 
student and scholar. But to a careful observer of his life, there 
is manifest tiiroughout a principle that does great credit to his 
character: it M^as a sincere regard for trutli, not merely in word, 



138 THE UlS'IVEESITY MEMORIAL. fj„ue^ 

but in every act — a desire to be rather than seem to be. This will 
be evident as we follow him. through the further stages of his life. 

From tiie Upperville Academy he went to the University in the 
fall of 1856. As the honors of the Academy had never been an 
object with him, so was it in his College course. Though his 
standing was creditable in all branches — and he took an exten- 
sive literary course, — it is not believed that he was ever a candi- 
date for graduation in any school ; certain is it that he was not, 
during his last session. He, however, affected no contempt for 
diplomas, nor for those who sought them as evidence of their 
attainments ; indeed, he usaally stood the " intermediate examina- 
tions," and not unfrequently his ordinary attention to the course 
enabled him to attain to the standard requisite for distinction; 
yet he thought that, in his own case, the time necessary for special 
preparation was better spent in following out the general course 
of the subject. He sought a liberal education for its own sake, or 
rather for the advantages it gave him as a man, and not as fitting 
liim for any special sphere of life. To carry out this view, he 
.spent three years at College. 

In the summer of 1858 he made a public profession of religion, 
and was baptized into the fellowship of the Baptist Church in 
Upperville. His early life had been passed without any special 
religious influence in his home, but he was not a stranger to the 
Sunday School. At the time that he connected himself with the 
Church, he was well versed in the Scriptures, and not only evinced 
clear views of the great fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, but 
discovered an nnusual sense of the obligations of a Christian to 
advance the kingdom of Christ in the world. It was this first 
year of his religious life that we spent together at the University, 
and during this time he was marked for his earnest devotion and 
zealous activity in the Redeemer's cause. Indeed, this was true 
of him from the first until the day that he was taken to be forever 
w^itli the Lord. To this effect is the testimony of his pastor, Rev. 
George W. Harris, who saw him almost daily in times of peace, 
and followed the fortunes of his regiment in the war, as its 
Chaplain. 

It is evident that he regarded activity in the Master's service as 
no less a part of the Christian's life than faith and prayer, and as 
the natural fruit of them. He avoided the rock on which so 
many split; he formed not his standard by comparing himself 



1802.] 



THE U^'IVEESITY MEMORIAL. 139 



with other professors of religion, but directed his life by that 
which the Word of God set up. If any one thinks that in this 
he assumed superiority to other Christians, he does not know the 
man nor what spirit he was of: though ever seeking opportunities 
of doing good and embracing them Aviien found, he always felt 
that he was doing too little ; though ever seeking greater spirit- 
uality and consecration of heart and will, he was filled with 
humility and a sense of his unworthiness, and often lamented to 
his friends in private that he lived so far from his God and had 
so little of the Spirit of Jesus. This was not that his piety was 
of a low grade ; far otherwise ; it was but the natural result of the 
high and holy standard which he was ever approaching. 

At College he met with Boardman's " Higher Christian L/ife." 
Favorably impressed with the title, longing as he was for that 
which it seemed to indicate, he procured the work and read it 
without the cavils? of the theologians. His heart responded to its 
solemn truths, whichs so many Christians practically ignore; and 
feeling that its perusal could not fail to be beneficial, he 2)resented 
his room-mate with a copy of it. 

"While a student, he was an active member of the Young Men's 
Christian Association, taking part in their j^rayer-meetings and 
missionary labors. On Sabbath mornings he went on foot to 
attend and assist in conducting religious services for the poor in 
the Ragged Mountains, distant five miles from the University. 
To do this was to him a great pleasure, though it required no little 
sacrifice to forego the privilege of attending the ministry of Rev. 
John A. Broadus, whose sermons, rich in spiritual instruction, 
were so highly appreciated by him. 

From the University Willie Carr retired to his farm in 
Fauquier County, near Upperville. In his retirement he laid 
aside nothing of his activity. He was made Superintendent of 
the Sunday School ; and through his influence, a Young Men's 
Christian Association was organized in tiie village. This was not 
confined to the young, but embraced all the men of the vicinity 
who were willing to engage in the work. Tlie field was a very 
limited one for such an organization ; but he referred with great 
pleasure to one result of it, that it had brought the Christians of 
different denominations into pleasant intercourse and co-operation. 
In a letter written at this time, he mentions that four nights in the 
week Jie attended religious services in the village. Thus he lived 



140 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[June, 



and labored in his quiet country home, shedding the light of a 
happy, Christian life upon all who came under his influence. 

In the spring of 1861, at the first sound of war, he offered 
himself a soldier to his State, and joined a company raised in his 
neighborhood, which was incorporated with the 8th Virginia In- 
fantry, commanded by the gallant Col. Epa Hunton. He did tljis. 
not in the zeal of youth and heat of excitement, thirsting for the 
fray and looking for fame, but with the same calm and decided 
devotion to duty that marked his private life. He served in the 
ranks for one year ; and by his patient, cheerful endurance of the 
hardships and discomforts of march and camp, and by his gallant 
bearing in battle, he won a character as a soldier unsurpassed by 
any man in the army. 

At the reorganization of the army in 1862, his comrades showed 
their appreciation of his fine qualities, by electing him to a Lieu- 
tenancy in his company. 

In his military life he never allowed the character of the soldier 
to sink that of the Christian ; and throughout his command he was 
known for the latter not less than for the former. He wa.s one of 
the many heroes in the Confederate Army who mingled with their 
daily prayers for the deliverance of their country, earnest petitions 
for the spiritual welfare of their comrades, not unfrequently joining 
to their prayers personal exhortations to their comrades to put on 
also the armor of God. 

The following quotation is from an obituary notice of Lieuten- 
ant Carr, written by Major Henry C. Carter, who was for a long 
time his Captain : — 

" He was a refined and educated gentleman, gentle, courteous, 
and unobtrusive in his manners, unselfish and obliging in his dis- 
position, yet ready and Avilling to meet his duties firmly, though 
they might lead him into the face of the most imminent danger. 
In the battles of Manassas, Leesburg, Williamsburg, and Seven 
Pines, he participated, and in each exhibited unmistakable cour- 
age, never for a moment faltering in the discharge of his duty. 
To his excellence as a man and a soldier was added the superior 
adornment of an eminently pure Christian character. The writer 
of this notice knew him well, and never knew a purer or better 
man. He, with the numerous friends of this young and promis- 
ing officer, deeply deplores his early fall; but he has the consola- 
tion of knowing that he fell at his post, nobly and heroically vin- 



I,g2_;i THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 141 

dicating with his blood his country's cause, and thai while his 
body now rests in a hero's grave, his pure spirit is realizing a 
Christian hero's reward." 

Most faithfully and unwaveringly did he discharge the duties of 
a soldier and officer, until he laid down his arms with his life in 
the battle of Seven Pines, June 1st, 1862. In his spotless life 
and beautiful character he left a worthy example to all who knew 
him. 

" He lived as mothers wish their sons to live: 
He died as fathers wish their sons to die." 



LATANE BROTHEES. 



Dr. William Latani5, Captain, and John Latank, Junior 1st Lieutenant, Essex 
Light Dragoons, Company F, 9Ui Virginia Cavalry. 

"The Rev. Lewis Latane fled from France to England after 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in October, 1685, and 
remained there until the year 1700. He was ordained Deacon 
September 22, and Priest, October 18, of that year; reached Vir- 
ginia, March 5, 1701, and took charge of the Parish of South Farn- 
ham, April 5, of that year." How long he continued in charge of 
the church in Essex is not known, but complimentary mention 
w^as made of him, both as a man and as a speaker, by a gentleman 
who heard him in 1717. Tlie year previous to this, an ineffectual 
attempt was made by some of the vestry to displace him, not how- 
ever on the ground of immorality or inefficiency, but because of 
his dialect. A man of high integrity, lie seems to have felt keenly 
the injustice of this effi)rt; and, though of quiet temperament, lie 
did not liesitate to rebuke the spirit that suggested it. ''' He was 
riding," says Bishop Meade, "with one of his parishoners, when 
the subject of his removal was talked over by tiiem. The other 
expressed liis sorrow, but thought it better on tlie ground that Mr. 
Latane's sermons were rendered unintelligii)le by his foreign 
brogue. Before separating, they came to the minister's gate. 'Go 
by/ he said, 'and get something to drink,' which was readily 
agreed to. Tiiis he said to prove him. ' Now,' said the minister, 
'you can readily understand me -when I tempt you to do "wrong, 
but you can't understand me when I counsel you to do right.' " 



142 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. j-j^^g^ 

Mr. Latane died in 1732, leaving six children, the fruit of his 
marriage with Miss Mary Dean, his third wife. His cnly sur- 
viving son, John, married a Miss Mary Allen, and left one sou, 
William. 

William Latane married a Miss Ann Waring, and was the 
father of several children, — among these Henry W. Latan£, 
Avho, in October, 1819, was married to Susanna, daughter of 
James and Ursula Dix Allen, both of Essex. 

Tiius, briefly, we have traced the lineage of tiie gallant soldiers 
whose names are found at the head of this paper. 

Captain William Latan6, son of Henry W. Latane, was 
born at " Meadow," in Essex County, Virginia, January 16, 1833. 
He was one of seven brothers, only four of whom survived the 
war. 

In October, 1851, he commenced the study of Medicine at the 
University of Virginia, and during that session obtained cer- 
tificates of distinction in several subjects embraced in the course. 
The next year he attended lectures at the College at Richmond, 
where he w^as graduated Doctor of Medicine. Returning then to 
Essex County, he entered upon a successful practice of his profes- 
sion. He is represented as a man of steady, moral character, of 
vigorous mind, and energetic business habits. With his calling 
as a physician he combined the pleasant duties of a farmer ; and 
thus he was leading a quiet and useful life, all unconscious ot the 
short, but shining way which he was so soon to tread to glory and 
the grave. 

Thoroughly Virginian in all his feelings. Doctor Latan:^ was 
also an ardent secessionist. At the beginning of our national 
troubles, he was very active in raising a company of cavalry which, 
under the name of the " Essex Light Dragoons," was mustered 
into service at "Camp Byron," near Dunsville, about June, 1861. 
In this company he was elected Junior 1st Lieutenant ; a position 
which he held during the first year of tho war. Upon the reor- 
ganization of the array under the act of Congress, he was elected 
Captain of the Essex Troop. He was without doubt a fit man for 
the office, combining the talents of a commander with those softer 
qualities that captivated the heart and made his men love him. 
It was thus, as by some magic influence, he controlled his com- 
pany, so that during his brief career there was neither insubordi- 
nation nor dissatisfaction 



IS62.] THE TJNTVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 143 

Passing over the minor events of Capt. Latan]&'s military life, 
Ave come at once to Stuart's " Ride around McClellan," rightly 
called by the Richmond Examiner " one of the most brilliant 
affairs of the war, bold in its inception, most brilliant in its ex- 
ecution." 

It was not until the second day of this expedition that any op- 
position was made by the enemy. On Friday, June 13th, the 5th 
U. S. Cavalry, which Gen. Stuart had already driven back a 
mile or two, having been reenforced, halted near Old Church in 
Hanover and prepared to dispute his further progress. " There 
^vas but one method of attacking them — in columns of fours 
along the road — and Gen. Stuart at once threw forward his 
men." 

" A squadron under Captain Latan6 charged the enemy^s 
column with spirit. A sharp hand-to-hand fight ensued, resulting 
in the Federals being put to flight, with a loss of several killed 
and wonnded. Several officers and privates were taken prisoners, 
and a number of horses, arms, equipments, and five guidons. 
Captain Latax^ singled out the Federal commander, and dash- 
ing at him, cut off* his hat close to his face with a blow of his 
sabre. The latter dodged the blow, Avhich had else been fatal, and 
turning quickly, fired two revolver loads at Latane, killing him 
instantly." * 

" How flashed his soul from his speaking eye, 
How throbbed his bosom wild and high, 

As his dashing charge he made. 
The rush of war-steeds shook the ground. 
The glittering sabres flnshed around. 
But highest gleamed Ids blade." 

" Thus charging at the head he fell, 
'Mid victor's sliouts and battle swell. 
Into the arms of fame ! " t 

From Old Church, General Stuart proceeded to make, as Mr. 
Swinton styles it, "the circuit of the Union army, I^y a swoop 
around its roar." At Putney's Landing, he burned three tran- 
sports ; at Tunstall's Station he captured the guard and cut the 
telegraph wires; at Black Creek he fired the railroad bridge. 
Thence, capturing a large wagon-train by the way, he moved on 
to Talleyville, Avhere was a Federal hospital which lie left undis- 
turbed, and reached Forge Bridge, on the Chickahominy, about 

♦McC^be's Life of Lee. + Anonymous Lines on the deatli of Captain Lataxj5. 



144 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. ^j^^^^^ 

daylight on Saturday morning. Improvising a bridge over the 
swollen stream, General Stuart crossed it about one o'clock in the 
afternoon, almost in sight of a large Federal force wliich was 
pressing on his rear. A few hours more, and the Confederates 
were within their own lines, "having successfully acliieved what 
will always be regarded as one of the most brilliant feats ever per- 
formed by any cavalry," the results of which consisted less in the 
millions of property destroyed for the enemy, than in the informa- 
tion which enabled Gen. Lee to carry out his i^lan of attacking 
the Union army. 

On Monday morning Gen. Stuart issued the following con- 
gratulatory order to the troops engaged in this grand recon- 
noissance : — 

" Headquaetees Cavalry Brigade, 
June 16, 1862. 
" General Oeders No. 11. 

"The General of Cavalry, profoundly grateful to Divine Provi- 
dence for the signal success attending the late expedition to the 
enemy's rear, takes pleasure in announcing in orders his apprecia- 
tion of the bravery and endurance of the command, 

"History will record in imperishable characters, and a grateful 
country remember with gratitude, that portion of the First, 
Fourth, and Ninth Virginia Cavalry, the Jeff Davis Legion, 
and a section of the Stuart Horse Artillery, engaged in the expe- 
dition. 

"What was accomplished is known to you, to the public, and 
to the enemy; but the passage of the Chickahominy under exist- 
ing difficulties, furnishes a separate chapter of praise for the praise 
of the whole command. 

"The General will despair of no enterprise when he can hold 
such guarantees of success as Colonels Fitzhugh Lee, William H. 
Fitzhugh Lee, Martin, with their brave and devoted commands. 

"The loss of the gallant and heroic Captain Lataxe, leading 
his squadron in a brilliant and successful charge, was a severe 
blow to us; but the enemy routed and flying before him, will bear 
witness to a heart intrepid, and spirit invincible, whose influence 
will not be lost after death, while his regiment will want no better 
battle-cry for victory than 'Avenge Latane ! ' Proud of his 
command, the General trusts that it will never lose sight of what 



jj;.;o.j THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 145 

is at stake in this struggle, and the reputation now its province to 
maintain. By command of 

"J. E. B. Stuart, Brigadier-General. 
"J. T. W. Hairston, a. a. a, (?." 

Just a week afterwards, this order was followed by a compli- 
mentary one from the Commander-in-Chief of the Southern 
armies : — 

" Head-Qrs. Dep't of Northern Va., \ 
June 2-M, 1862. S 
" General Orders No. 74. 

"The General Commanding announces with great satisfaction to 
the Army, the brilliant exploit of Brig.-Genl. J. E. B. Stuart, 
with part of the troops under his command. This gallant officer, 
with portions of the 1st, 4th, and 9th Va, Cavalry, a part of the 
Jeff. Davis Legion, with whom were the Boykin Rangers, and a 
section of the Stuart Horse Artillery, on the 13th, 14th and loth 
of June, made a reconnoissance between the Paraunkey and Chicka- 
hominy Rivers, and succeeded in passing around the rear of the 
whole Federal army, routing the enemy in a series of skirmishes, 
taking a number of prisoners, and destroying and capturing stores 
to a large amount. Having most successfully accomplished its 
object, the expedition recrossed the Chickahominy almost in the 
presence of the enemy, with the same coolness and address that 
marked every step of its progress, and with the loss of but one 
man, the lamented Captain Latane, of the 9th Va. Cavalry, who 
fell bravely leading a successful charge against a superior force of 
the enemy. In announcing this signal success to the Army, the 
General Commanding takes great pleasure in expressing his 
admiration of the courage and skill so conspicuously exhibited 
throughout by the General, and the officers and men under his 
command. 

" In addition to the officers honorably mentioned in the report of 
the expedition, the conduct of the following privates lias received 
the special commendation of their respective Commanders: — Pri- 
vate Thos. D. Clapp, Company D, 1st Va. Cavalry, and J. S. 
!Mo.sby, serving wnth the same regiment; j)rivaLes Ashton, Brent, 
R. Herring, F. Herring, and F. Coleman, Company E, 9th Va. 
Cavalry. 

" By command of General Lee. 

" R, II. Chilton, A. A. General." 
10 



146 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL-. 



[June, 



What, then, had become of " the lamented Captain Latan6, of 
the 9th Va. Cavalry, who fell bravely leading a successful charge 
against a superior force of the enemy"? That "gallant and 
heroic" soldier, upon whose fallen form when Colonel Lee looked, 
it is said his manly eyes filled with tears; that young chieftain, 
whose men in their grief for his untimely death, forgot the glory 
they had just achieved — was he left a prey to the insults of those 
who had fled before his nervous blows, and who were now the 
more indignant because outdone ? No ; he was destined to receive 
a burial, the manner of which Avas scarcely less honorable than 
that of his death. Like Richard Corbin, he found gentle hands 
to perform this melancholy office. 

John L at axe, then a non-commissioned officer in the Essex 
Troop, had remained with his brother's dead body, and on Friday 
evening he conveyed it in a mill-cart to AVestwood, the residence of 
Dr. Wm. S. E,. Brokenbrough, who was then a surgeon in the army, 
and absent from home. " On this sad and lonely errand, he met a 
party of Yankees, who followed him to the gate and told him that 
as soon as he had placed his brother's body in friendly hands, he 
must surrender himself prisoner." Mrs. Brokenbrough took the 
dead soldier into her care, and promised to bury him as tenderly 
as if he were her brother. Several ladies from Summer Hill — 
t!ie residence of Captain Wm. B. Newton, and adjoining West- 
\vood — were sent for, to assist in preparing the body for the burial. 
One of them wrote thus of him : — "Pie looked so young — not 
more than twenty years of age. ■ He was shot in four places : 
one ball had entered the region of his heart, and passed out at 
the back. A\^e cut a large lock of his hair, as the only thing we 
could do for his mother. We have sent for Mr. Carraway to per- 
form the funeral services."* 

Mr. Carraway — he, too, now gone to his rest — was not allowed 
bv the enemy to be present ; and " so," says the writer just quoted, 
'•' we took the body of our poor young captain and buried it our- 
selves in the Summer Hill grave-yard"— the family burying- 
ground of the Brokenbroughs, where William Brokenbrough 
Phelps had been laid in January, and where Captain William 
Brokenbrough Newton was to find his resting-place before the 
close of the war. 

The noble service thus rendered, has provoked the art of both 

* Diary of a Southern Refugee, p. 143. 



1862.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 147 



the jjainter and the poet. Washington's " Burial of Latane " 
shows us the mantled body by the open grave, the faithful group 
around it, the pious matron, witli eyes turned heavenward, 
reciting the beautiful burial-service of the Episcopal Church ; a 
fair-haired little girl who has brought white flowers from the gar- 
den to strew upon the dead ; the lovely women sorrowing for the 
fate of their brave champion, and the humble slaves looking rev- 
erently on, ready to consign the inanimate form to its last resting- 
place. The whole forms a most touching and impressive scene, 
the spirit and sentiment of which have been very sympathetically 
rendered by the artist. The painting, which is not a simple fancy 
sketch, is one which friend and foe may alike enjoy, fitly forgetting, 
in its sad, sweet, and chastened beauty, the madness which has 
wrought such havoc. 

The dashing charge of the young Virginian, and the tender 
care of these daughters of Virginia, have been handsomely com- 
memorated by a distinguished alumnus of our University, who 
thus, perhaps unconsciously, performed the pious M'ork of embalm- 
ing the memory of one of his foster-brothers. We give entire the 
fine poem of John R. Thompson, Esq., on 

THE BURIAL OF LATANE. 

The combat raged not long, but ours the day ; 

And through the hosts tiiat compassed us around 
Our little band rode proudly on its way, 

Leaving one gallant comrade, glory-crowned, 
Unburied on the field he died to gain, 
Single of all his men amid the hostile slain. 

One moment on the battle's edge he ' tood, 

Hope's halo like a helmet round his hair ; 
The next beheld him dabbled in his blood, 

Prostrate in death, and yet in death liow fair ! 
E'en thus he passed through the red gate of strife 
From earthly crowns and palms to an immortal life. 

A brother bore his body from the field, 
And gave it unto strangers' liands, that closed 

The calm blue eyes, on earth forever sealed. 
And tenderly the slender limbs comjxjsed : 

Strangers, yet sisters, who, with Mary's love, 

Sat by the open ti)mb, and, weeping, looked above. 

A little child strewed roses on his bier, 

Pale roses, not more stainless than his soul, 
Nor yet more fragrant than his life sincere. 

That blossomed with good actions, brief, but whole : 
The aged matron and the faithful slave 
Approached with reverent feet the hero's lowly grave. 



148 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOKIAL. [j„:,c, 

No man of God might read the burial rite 

Above the rebel — thus declared the foe 
That blanched before him in the deadly fifht ; 

But woman's voice, in accents soft and low, 
Trembling with pity, touched with pathos, read 
Over this hallowed dust the ritual for the dead : — 

" 'Tis sown in weakness, it is raised in power ; " 

Softly the promise floated on the air. 
And the sweet breathings of the sunset hour 

Came back responsive to the mourner's prayer ; 
Gently they laid him underneath the sod, 
And left him with his fame, his country, and his God. 

Let us not weep for him, whose deeds endure ; 

So young, so brave, so beautiful, he died 
As he had wished to die — the past is sure ! 

Whatever yet of sorrow may betide 
Those who still linger by the stormy shore, 
Change cannot touch him now, nor fortune harm him more. 

And when Virginia, leaning on her spear — 

" Victrix et Vidua" the conflict done — 
Shall raise her mailed hand to wipe the tear 

That starts as she recalls each martyred son, 
No prouder memory her breast shall sway 
Than thine, our early lost, lamented Latane. 

Lieutenant John Latane, younger brother of William and 
twin-brother of Lewis Latane, was born at the family residence, 
" Meadow," on the 10th of May, 1838. He entered the Uni- 
versity in 1857, and was still there at the beginning of the war. 
During this time he had attained distinction in many subjects, and 
degrees in Latin, Spanish, Anglo-Saxon, and Political Economy, 
He stood well as a member of the Jefferson Society, when his 
brother (now Rev.) Jas. A. Latane had already made the name a 
familiar and respected one, he having but a few years previously 
represented it as Anniversary Orator, and afterwards served it as 
President. John also contributed to the University Magazine, 
and one of his articles, "Education and the Natural Sciences," was 
regarded with great favor by the Committee of Professors 
appointed to award the gold medal for the best article during the 
session. 

His feeling in regard to the state of the country in 1861, is 
clearly shown by the fact that he was one of a number of students 
who planted the secession flag on the rotunda before the ordinance 
was passed by his native State. In Ai)fil of that year he accom- 
panied the expedition to Harper's Ferry, and soon afterwards 
enlisted in the Essex Light Dragoons, in which he was made a 
non-commissioned officer. The high religious character which he 



1SC2.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 14li 



bore at college, as a communicant of the Episcopal Church and 
member of the Young Men's Christian Association, was retained 
when he exchanged the citizen's dress for the soldier's uniform. 
In the field he was dashing and impetuous, and his handsome 
bearing as a soldier, combined with his consistent life as a Chris- 
tian, rendered him popular in his company. 

We have already mentioned how he discharged the melancholy 
duty imposed upon him by the death of his brother at Old Church. 
Soon after this event he was elected Junior 1st Lieutenant in the 
Essex Troop, and served as such until his own death. 

Daring the Wilderness campaign in 1864, and just after the 
battle of Spottsylvania Court House, his command went on a 
scouting expedition to the rear of Grant's army. Lieutenant 
Latane was commanding a squad of cavalry at the residence of 
Dr. Reynolds, near Fredericksburg, and in charging around the 
house upon a party of the enemy in the yard on the other side, he 
was accidentally shot by one of his own men. Too weak from loss 
of blood to be brought back into our lines, he was left with Dr. 
Reynolds. On the same day, however, he was found by the enemy, 
taken to Fredericksburg, and thence to Lincoln Hospital, Wash- 
ington, where not long after he died of his wound. 

The writer of this tribute knew Johx Latani^ well at College, 
and valued him highly, not only as a man of intellectual vigor, 
but what is far better, as one whose life illustrated that tyj)e of 
piety which never fails to make its impress upon the world. Con- 
cerning him, a life-time friend says: — "I did not know a more 
promising young man in Tidewater Virginia. His character, I 
think, rather eclipses that of the gallant Captain, his brother. I 
have heard more eulogies from his comrades heaped upon him 
than upon William Lataxe." 

His body was interred first in the ISTational Cemetery at Arling- 

,ton, but immediately after the war it was brought back to Essex, 

and laid by tiiat of his twin-brother, Lewis, who, dying a few 

montiis after Joiix, was awaiting him under the shade trees of the 

family burying-ground. 

These two young men — who in infancy claimed at once the 
same mother's tender care, in childhood and youth were playmates 
and friends, at school and college companions and room-mates, in 
matters of religious faith members of the same Church, in Avar 
sympathized with the same cause, in behalf of which each gave 



150 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. ^j^^^^ 

his life — should not be separated even in a notice like this. 
Lewis Latane was not technically a soldier. Four of his brothers 
were in the Confederate service, and another in the ministry, and 
resident at a distance. It seemed necessary that one son should 
remain with the widowed mother ; and Lewis, persuaded by the 
family, consented to stay at home and fill the office of Deputy 
Clerk of the County. He was not less in sympathy with the 
South than were his brothers, and not less eager than they to take 
the field for the defence of Virginia; but a sense of duty retained 
him at home. 

While discharging the functions of Deputy Clerk, he was a 
member of the Home Guard ; and during the progress of the 
war, much of his time Avas spent in forwarding supplies to the 
army, a matter which, if all had been as earnest and energetic 
about it, would doubtless have greatly modified, if not changed 
entirely, the result of the w^ar. In this pati'iotic service he lost 
his life. 

About the close of September, 1864, and just previous to the 
battle at Peeble's Farm and Squirrel Level, he went to carry sup- 
plies to our beleaguered men at Petersburg. While thus engaged, 
he contracted a disease of which he died on the 15th of the follow- 
ing October. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON MORRIS. 

Private in the " Huger Artillery." 

George W. Morris was one of eleven children of Jesse and 
Nancy Morris. When he was but four years old, his mother 
died; and at the age of eleven he was left an orphan by the death 
of his father. He was born on Back Bay, in Princess Anne 
County, Virginia, July 29, 1832. 

With so large a family, " it was utterly impossible," he after- 
wards wrote, for his father to give them a good education, " though 
he did what he could towards it." Up to the time of his father's 
death, he had learned "something about the mysteries of reading, 
writing and arithmetic," but during the first two years succeeding 
that event, he made rapid progress under the tuition of his brother, 



1862.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 151 

Jesse T. Morris. "With the year 1846, his brother's school closed, 
and Geoege returned to his guardian's, and worked on his farm 
until September, 1848. From this date until the end of 1850, he 
was most of the time at his books, though with the disadvantage 
of frequent changes of both teachers and location, being at one 
place three months, at another seven and a half, another six, and 
still another three. In spite of all these obstacles, however, he 
had by this time acquired considerable knowledge of Latin and 
Mathematics, and learned something of Greek. 

Compelled, by pecuniary considerations, to abandon the further 
pursuit of an education, the young man then presented himself 
before the Free School Committee of Examination as a candidate 
for the position of teacher, received a certificate of qualification, 
and took charge of the school located near Black Water Chnrch, 
in his native county. In this employment he continued two years, 
toiling couscientiously for the improvement of his pupils. In his 
journal of May, 1852, ho wrote thus: — "I find the task of the 
teacher to be no light one, if his duty be discharged. I have 
endeavored to discharge my duty as faithfully as possible, and I 
intend to do so as long as I remain at this most unpleasant employ- 
ment." The sequel will show that he was fond of teaching, and 
chose it as the business of his life. It was doubtless " most 
unpleasant " at this time, because his poverty compelled him to 
devote to it time which he desired to occupy in study. 

In the following December he gave up his school, and in 
January became a student at Richmond College. The best view 
of his life there is furnished by his diary, from which the follow- 
ing are extracts : — 

"March 28, 1853. On Saturday, January 15, I arrived here. 
On ]\Ionday took up the studies of Latin and Greek, and, in the 
course of a week or two. Mathematics. So far 1 think I am ad- 
vancing quite rapidly and thoroughly. On Snnday, January 16, 
T joined the Sunday-School of the First Baptist Church. On the 
first Monday in February, I was initiated a member of the ' Mu 
Sigma Rho Society ' ; find it to be quite interesting and iristructive. 
A week or two ])rovions I joined the ' Total Abstinence Society of 
Richmond College,' and do not regret it. To-day I have just 
returned from a visit to the State Penitentiary and the Poor- 
House Burial Ground. I was quite interested with my visit, 
especially that to the 'Horse Shoe College,' as the students 
call it. 



152 THE UIsIVEESITY MEMORIAL. ^j^^^^ 

" 31mj 8. The session is rapidly drawing to a close. I am 
busy, very busy. No one can get along here without being 
thorough. 

"May 15. To-day is holiday with most of the students, who 
seem to enjoy themselves, having nothing to do. AVith me, how- 
ever, it is not so. I have been engaged all day in working out 
problems in Bourdon. 

"Blackwater, July 15. Have been from college nearly two 
weeks. The Commencement Exercises were held on Friday, July 
1, and opened with music by the Armory Band, Next, Rev. Ro. 
Ryland introduced to the audience Mr. Z. Jeter George, of Lan- 
caster County, who delivered a very spirited address. Then Dr. 
Ryland read aloud the names of those studeirts who had stood 
examinations and thereby distinguished themselves. My name 
was read out four times. Thus my course at college has been as 
satisfactory to me as I could have expected. On all my studies I 
took distinctions." 

On the eleventh of July, Mr. MoREis, by invitation of the 
Committee, took charge of Free School No. 18, in Princess Anne 
County. But having found, during the autumn, a friend who was 
willing to lend him the means to prosecute his studies, he returned 
to College in December, with grateful heart and buoyant spirit. 
Henceforward his course was uninterrupted. During the year. 
Prof. Dabney, M'ho hud conceived a high regard for him, and 
sympathized with him in his struggle under difficulties to secure 
an education, offered him two of his classes, in Latin and French, 
for whidi he should receive his board and tuition at College. He 
accepted the offer for the next session, when, accordingly, he 
became both teacher and student. Under date Nov. 12, 1854, he 
wrote : — " At present I am progressing tolerably well. I have a 
great deal to attend to, have to study very hard; indeed, I think I 
am too closely confined to my room for my health." 

In the month of February, 1855, there was considerable re- 
ligious interest among the students, and Mr. Morris's thoughts, 
hitherto engaged by the single purpose to become a scholar, was 
directed to the claims of eternity. The result is thus expressed: 
" March 30, 1855. It is with pleasure that I now write. One 
thing, the most important of earthly matters, has been attended to. 
On the 11th of March, I trust I made peace with God, and was 
enabled to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. On the 25th I was 



1863.J THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 153 

baptized by the Rev. J. L. Burrows, pastor of the First Baptist 
Cliurch at Richmond, Va." His religious life was, however, sub- 
jectively considered, very uneven. Rejoicing at times as he looked 
with ravished eye from the mountain-top " where Moses stood," 
he descended often into the valley of despond, and mourned almost 
hopelessly over his unclean heart. But his external life was 
always without fault ; and as he grew older he was thought to be 
more equal in spirit. 

At the end of the session of 1855-6, he was graduated 
Bachelor of Arts at Richmond College. His scholarship in the 
course pursued there, was regarded as both accurate and thorough, 
while his deportment had been uniformly such as to win the con- 
fidence and regard of his instructors and associates. 

The following year he was engaged as tutor in the family of 
Dr. George Fleming, of Hanover; but in October, 1857, at the 
solicitation of his brother. Prof C. Morris, a Master of Arts of 
the University of Virginia, he entered that institution, where he 
graduated, at the close of the session, in Latin, French, and 
Mathematics. Prof. Morris then associated him with himself as 
assistant in the Norfolk Classical School, where his aptness to 
teach and eminent fidelity gave the highest satisfaction. In 1860 
he assumed control of the school, and conducted it successfully 
until the opening of the war. 

George Morris was not fit for any position in the field. His 
health, from a child, had been feeble, his constitution frail and 
infirm. Often, from his earliest years, life had been but a struggle 
with death. But he was an ardent lover of the South, and with 
his scrupulous conscientiousness, he felt that he must do what 
he could for its support. From his "Reminiscences of Camp- 
Life" we learn the course he pursued, "The Old Dominion 
seceded," he wrote, "on the 18th of April, 1861, which fact 
I learned on the 19th, when I closed my school and united with 
the 'Norfolk Light Artillery Blues.' On Saturday, 20th, I 
received my first lesson in the military art. Sunday night, 
detailed for guard at the N. & P. R. R. over some cannon, the 
first guard-duty I ever performed." On the 23d he left "The 
Blues," who had not been mustered into service ; but on the lOtli 
of June he joiued " The Huger Artillery," and went into camp 
near tiie city. While engaged in the simple duties of the camp, 
and sheltered from the night air, his health became more robust, 



154 THE UNIYEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[June, 



and his love of countiy also seemed to wax warmer. Sometimes, 
sitting on his gun-earriage or caisson, he would throw his feeling 
of patriotism into rhyme, and transfer it to his memorandum-book. 
This book is now before the writer. Among others are "Lines 
Suggested by the Battle of Shiloh," in which is a touching reference 
to Dabney Carr Harrison, who Avas his chaplain when at the 
University, and who fell at the head of his company at Fort 
Donelson. 

Upon the evacuation of Norfolk, Saturday, May 10, 1862, tlio 
Huger Artillery marched directly to Petersburg. From the 
exposure incident to this march, George Morris contracted cohl, 
under which he suffered a general decline of health. When the 
company moved on to Richmond he was left in the hospital at 
Petersburg. The Surgeon did not regard his case as at all serious, 
and was confident that his "nervous prostration" would yield 
speedily to the influence of tonics, but he did not know how feeble 
were the cords of life. His prostration increased day by day, 
until about the 15th of June, when calmly, quietly he "fell on 
sleep." 

His funeral services were conducted by Rev. T. Hume, Sr., and 
his remains deposited near Blanford, where they still rest. Thns 
lavishly did this young man lay upon his country's altar the 
sacrifice of his life, with all the wealth of mental culture which 
life had been busy in securing. 

In personal appearance, Mr. Morris was of medium height, 
small and delicate frame, weighing perhaps one hundred and 
twenty-five, with dark hair and beard, and gray eyes. In manner 
he was unpretending and taciturn. His extreme modesty, amount- 
ing to positive timidity, rendered it difficult to form his acquaint- 
ance, and prevented him from being appreciated by the world. 
But once known, he was held in high esteem for his irreproach- 
able moral character, his stern fidelity to duty, and his tender^ 
woman heart. 



THOMAS GRADY WERTENBAKER, 

Private, Co. A, 19th Virginia Infantry. 

It would be difficult to write even the briefest sketch of the 
University of Virginia, without mentioning the name of William 



1362.] 'i'HE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 155 

Wertenbaker. The story of his long and useful life would 
furnish an interesting and valuable chapter in a comprehensive 
liistory of that institution. Coming to it in its infaucy, he has, 
with the exception of a j^eriod of some four years, dating from 1831, 
continued his connection with it until the present day, rejoicing in 
its steadily increasing prosperity, to which his own faithful dis- 
charge of duty has largely contributed. In January, 1826 — the 
year after its foundation — Mr. Wertenbaker was appointed to 
the office of Librarian ; the following December, he was made 
Secretary of the Faculty, and for more than twenty years dis- 
charged the duties of both offices. In one capacity or the other 
he has rendered a service of nearly forty years ; his signature is 
affixed to a larger number of Diplomas than that of any other 
person ever connected with the University. 

Here, amid those scenes which others, beholding first in early 
manhood, never forget, Thomas Gkady, third son of William 
and Louisiana Wertenbaker, first saw the light. He was born 
April 14, 1839. And here, in the midst of those influences which 
have been sought by thousands of the young men of the South, 
and under whose inspiration they yielded themselves to a generous 
rivalry in letters, he spent his childhood, youth, and the first years 
of his manhood. Students, as through successive years they came 
and went away, remember him, now as a chubby, blue-eyed child, 
now as a trimly-made, modest boy, noticeable for the freshness of 
his countenance, and the quiet demeanor which contrasted pleas- 
antly with the precocious forwardness that so often characterizes 
boys reared in the vicinity of large schools, and now as a youth of 
tall and spare but compact stature, whose face, still fresh, was 
assuming a sort of Napoleonic broadness, the effect of which was 
increased by trimming closely the light, stiff hair, 

At the age of sixteen Tom Wertenbaker began to attend 
lectures at the University, but having been unfortunate in the se- 
lection of teachers, he was compelled to enter the lowest classes, 
and even for these he was but poorly prepared. His diligent study 
was, however, rewarded at the end of the session by certificates of 
distinction in Junior Latin and Junior French. In the next three 
years he graduated in Latin, French, Anglo-Saxon, Spanish, 
Chemistry, and Moral Philosophy. Daring all this time he was 
a member of the Washington Society, and at their Anniversary 
Celebration, February 22d, 1858, he was the reader of Wash- 
ington's Farewell Address. 



156 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOKIAL. j-j^^^^^ 

In the fall of 1859 he went to Petersburg, and there spent the 
academic year as assistant instructor in a High School. But in 
1860 he returned to the University, where, to the duties of a 
student he added, by authority of the Faculty, those of a Licen- 
tiate in the Latin lang-uage. 

"Distinguished in Senior Greek at the Intermediate Examin- 
ation," is the only record left of his work this session ; for before 
its close — about the middle of April — he had joined the " Mon- 
ticello Guards," Co. A, 19th Va. Infantry, and gone to look for 
"the front." For more than a year he served faithfully in this 
company and regiment, and participating with them in the battles 
of First Manassas and Williamsburg, displayed on both those fields 
a coolness and courage which his comrades afterwards spoke of in 
terms of unmeasured commendation. He was near-sighted, and, 
on going into battle, he would deliberately take out his spectacles, 
wipe off the dust, and then, putting them on, take up his musket. 

During the campaign on the Peninsula, whose atmosphere, 
charged with malarial influences, was fatal to so many of our sol- 
diers from the hill country, Mr. Wertenbaker contracted typhoid 
pneumonia. He was brought to " Wertland," his father's resi- 
dence; and there, amid the scenes of his childhood, in sight of 
that grand old Alma Mater whose fostering care had developed 
^is youthful gifts, and surrounded by those to whom his earliest 
love had been given, he died, Friday, June 23d, 1862, in the 23d 
year of his age. 

A special communication of Widow's Son Lodge, No. 60, of 
Free Masons, to whose honorable order he belonged, was held on 
the following day at their hall in Charlottesville, "for the purpose 
of paying a parting tribute to his memory." The subjoined 
extract is made from the records of that meeting : — 

"We take mournful pleasure in bearing our unanimous tes- 
timony to his high character as a citizen, to his gallait and 
patriotic bearing as a soldier, and to those sound virtues which 
rendered him the idol of his family, and gained him the affection 
of his associates and the esteem and respect of the Lodge. As a 
testimony of our .sorrow at his loss, cut down in the first years of 
manhood, and of our sympathy with iiis bereaved parents and 
friends, the Lodge doth unanimously 

^'Resolve, 1st. That we will attend the funeral of our late brother, 
Thos. G. Wertenbaker, this day, at 4 o'clock, from the Pres- 
byterian Church. 



lg62-| THE UNIVEPuSITY MEMOEIAL. 157 

" 2cl. That the officers and members of this Lodge, in respect for 
the memory of the deceased, will wear the usual badge of mourn- 
ing for thirty days. 

"3d. That we tender to his parents and family the expression 
of our profound sympathy in their affliction." 

On Saturday afternoon the funeral services were held at the 
church above named, and there the cortege, composed of sorrowing 
relatives. Masons, and sympathizing friends, took its slow way to 
the Univ^ersity burying-ground, where scholars and soldiers sleep 
together — the knightly cavalier by the Doctor of Laws. Then 
followed those solemn words, " Dust to dust, ashes to ashes," and 
the grave closed overall that was mortal of Tom AVeetenbaker. 

In closing this brief tribute to the memory of a valued friend, 
it is proper to refer to his religious character. Was he left in the 
grave as one who hath no " hope in his death " ? But a word 
will suffice — let that be from the venerable Prof. McGuflfey, 
under whose eye he had grown up to man's estate, and in whose 
class he had "honorable mention." In an obituary notice, pub- 
lished in the Central Presbyterian, the Doctor thus speaks of him : 

"In the early death of this Christian soldier, his friends and 
his country have sustained no ordinary loss. He was a man of 
talents highly cultivated, of unquestioned piety, and zealous in his 
Master's cause, with a practical good-sense that never mistook 
either the time or object of greatest usefulness. From the time of 
his connection with the (Presbyterian) Church in 1859 till his death, 
he was never known to decline or neglect an admitted duty. Had 
he lived, he would have preached the Gospel. From a habitually 
controlling sense of obligation, and an unflinching though unob- 
trusive moral firmness ■ — upon all occasions, in the ' Young 
Men's Christian Association,' (where he was prominent,) — in the 
camp, on the battle-field, or amongst the wounded, he Avas ever at 
his post. His motto was 'to do what's right, let come what may.' 
His faith (the gift of God) was that which works by love, puri- 
fies the heart and overcomes the world. He rests in ptac-c near 
the lamented Ashby. ' Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord , 
they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.' " 



158 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [ji^ne, 

% 

WILLIAM NAYLOR BRONAUGH, M. A., 

Major, 2d Arkansas Battalion. 

Of the ancestry of William N. Bronaugh but little is 
known to the writer of this sketch. His maternal grandfather 
was the late William Naylor, of Romney, Hampshire county, 
Virginia; his paternal grandfather, Wra. Bronaugh, of Loudon. 
His family was on the one side of English, on the other, of Irish 
extraction. He was born at Upperville, Fauquier county, Vir- 
ginia, February 9th, 1833, the son of Dr. J. W. Bronaugh, now 
of Manchester. 

The boyhood of Major Bronaugh was much like that of other 
boys marked by more than usual activity both of body and of spirit. 
His first school-days were spent at the Leesburg Academy, then 
under the direction of W. N. Benedict. Thence he passed into 
the Lisbon Institute, a school founded by the Rev. Benjamin H. 
Benton. 

He went from this school to the University in 1850 as a State 
student, at the age of eighteen. And thus early we find an illus- 
tration of the resoluteness of purpose that marked the man. His 
father was unable to furnish the moans necessary for expenses of 
board, books, &c. The young student, nothing discouraged, suc- 
ceeded in effecting insurance on his life, and so was able to borrow 
money. Tims sustained, he did not neglect the advantage of resi- 
dence at the University, as so many of the State students have 
done. ISTo better evidence of successful diligence can be given 
than the fact that at the expiration of two or three sessions he 
was made assistant teacher in the widely-known Ridgeway School. 
Here he remained one or two years, performing his duties so hon- 
estly and so skilfully as to win the highest confidence and esteem 
of the principal, Franklin Minor, Esq., a most shrewd judge of 
men. Returning to the University in 1856, at the end of the ses- 
sion of 1856-57 he received the degree of Master of Arts. Ti)e 
essay read by him on that occasion attracted attention as indica- 
ting a tendency of mind towards abstruse matters, and a power to 
deal with them with more than common vigor and keenness. 

His course at College thus completed, he at once entered on his 
chosen profession of teaching, and accepted the position of instruc- 



1862.1 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 159 



tor in the Ancient and Modern Languages in the Albemarle 
Female Institute, located in Charlottesville. This place he filled 
for two years, approving himself not only a scliolar of breadth 
and accuracy ot learning, but also a teacher of most rare skill, 
especially in imparting to his pupils much of his own enthusiasm 
of spirit. There are many ladies of our State, school-girls then, 
who quite well remember his rapid, nervous movements, his sharp, 
incisive forms of statement, his ingenious generalizations, his 
quaint and sometimes queer illustrations. 

While thus earnestly engaged, Major Broxaugh not only paid 
off the expenses of his own education, but, with characteristic 
unselfishness, maintained his brother. Dr. F. L. Bronaugh, at the 
University until he graduated in Medicine, and gave his sister 
the advantage of one year's residence at the school in which he 
taught. 

During the second year of Major Bronaugh's connection with 
the Institute, he had, as one of his colleagues, his most intimate 
friend, John Baker Thompson, one of the most genial, as one of 
the most accomplished men the writer has ever known. The 
affection for one another of these two men, high-spirited, highly 
cultivated, and yet in some respects very unlike, was as deep, 
unselfish, tender as a woman's love. . During that session, the 
Albemarle Female Institute had in her corps of teachers Bro- 
naugh, Thompson, and Toy — the last fortunately still living, 
and bestowing all the resources of his great learning on the train- 
ing of the rising Bajitist ministry of the South — all men who, 
in talents, character, and scholarship, might have adorned the 
proudest institutions of the land. 

In the summer of 1859, Messrs. Broxaugh and Thompson 
were invited to Little Rock, Arkansas, to take the control of St. 
John's College, an institution under the special care of the Masonic 
Order. They entered on their undertaking, in the midst of many 
difficulties, with the confident enthusiasm of young men who see 
unfolding before them the prospect of large fame and alinost 
unlimited usefulness. None who knew them can doubt that the 
College, under their direction, and with a few years of peace and 
general })rosperity, would have advanced to the front rank among 
the literary institutions of the Southwest. The writer well 
remembers with what confident hope Broxaugh, after the ex})e- 
rience of one year, spoke of the future of the College, and how 



160 THE TjNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. j-j^^g^ 

entirely enlisted in his work were all the powers of his polished 
intellect and passionate soul. 

But the session of 1860-61 was the last; before its end, we \vere 
in the midst of Avar, ¥/illiam N. Bronaugii could not do 
otherwise than throw himself heartily and wholly into the struggle. 
A Virginian, true to the interests and the honor of his State, he 
could not but answer her call. Thompson's feelings were the 
same; together they organized the 2nd Arkansas Regiment — 
Thompson being made Major, and Bkonaugh Adjutant. Order- 
ed to Virginia very soon, the regiment lay for some time, in com- 
parative inactivity, on the Potomac opposite Fredericksburg. On 
the Gve of the first battle of Manassas it made a forced march for 
the field, but in conseque-nce of position had no active part in the 
fight. Not long after, Major Thompson was at his own request 
transferred to Tennessee, where he hoped to find more active ser- 
vice. The battle of Shiloh followed soon, and on this field John 
Baker Thompson fell. Bronaugh remained in Virginia, but 
does not seem to have been engaged in very active service for 
some months. On February 1st, 1862, he was married to Miss 
Evelyn Taliaferro, of King William ; a lady with whom he 
became acquainted a few years before as a pupil at the Albe- 
marlo Female Institute. But he was soon summoned from the 
companionship of his youthful bride to the sterner companionships 
of the camp and the field. 

On the reorganization of the Confederate Army, Bronaugh 
was made Major of the 2nd Arkansas Battalion. In the first 
of the series of battles by which McClellan was forced from his 
strong positions below Hichmond, Major Bronaugii and his 
command shared. So severely had the command suffered in the 
battle of Seven Pines, that without solicitation a furlough was 
granted the survivors. This they refused to accept, because they 
expected another fight in a few days, and they chose to share its 
perils and its glory. On the 26th June, 1862, Major Bronaugh 
led the little remnant of his battalion into action, near Mechan- 
icsville Bridg-e, four miles from Richmond. In the very heat of 
the battle he was struck by the fragment of a shell on the inner 
part of the riglit thigh, making a horrible wound. Captain Bea- 
vers of his battalion was at Iiis side when he fell. Prostrate and 
dying, he continued to urge forward his surviving comrades. Just 
as he was taken from the field he inquired of Captain B., "How 



ig(52.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 161 

goes the day?" "We arc beating them," the Captain answered 
"I am now satisfied," said Bronaugh, "and am willing to die ;" 
and in two honrs he was dead. His body rests in Hollywood 
Cemetery. 

In person, Major Bronaugh was rather noticeable than com- 
manding. A good deal under the average size, he had yet an 
elasticity and confidence of movement altogether in keeping with 
his free, eager, independent spirit. His frame, though apparently 
slight, was capable of great endurance, and indeed impatient of 
inactivity. And hence, when a student, he could not confine him- 
self so unremittingly as do some. Of his face, no one feature was 
remarkable. A compact, well-cut forehead, surmounted with a 
wealth of rich auburn hair almost verging into red; hazel eyes, 
that now twinkled with merriment or softened into sympathy, 
that now flashed with indignation, and not rai-ely assumed the 
steady and aimless gaze of the man wrapt in inner contemplation ; 
a well-formed nose; a mouth and chin fully expressing his eager, 
resolute temper; these combined to form- a face that will remain 
clearly defined in the memory of every man who knew him. 

As might be anticipated of a man of such physical and mental 
structure, he was fond of all manly sports and exercises. No 
huntsman pursued his game with keener zest and more unflagging 
energy; no angler ensnared his finny prey with more watchful 
patience. Allusion Jias been made to the singularly strong attach- 
ment between Bronaugh and Baker Thomjjson. During their 
residence at the Albemarle Female Institute, it Avas one of Bro- 
NAUGh's highest pleasures to spend an afternoon in partridge- 
shooting, with Thompson as his companion. No obstacles over- 
came his ardor, and yet, in tlie midst of the excitement of the 
hunt, he was ever thouglitful and tender of the health and comfort 
of his fragile friend. ISIore than once did he wade Moore's Creek, 
bearing Thompson on his back, rather than expose the latter to the 
risk of wet feet. And not the least pleasant feature of these 
i-anibles was tiie lively, comic strain in which, at the sup[)er-table, 
Thompson would recount the incidents and accidents of the evening. 

As a teacher of languages, of the many men of first-rate ability 
who have been associated with the writer, no one was superior to 
BiiONAUGH. While resident at Little Rock he prepared for 
publication a grammar of the Latin language, but did not live to 
bring it out. Those who are acquainted Avith his views — at once 
11 



162 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. ^j^ny, 

novel and striking on several points — will hardly doubt that the 
book would have been a valuable one. 

We close this sketch with the following general estimate of 
Major Bronaugh's character, from the pen of one who knew him 
most intimately — Rev. C. H. Toy, of Greenville, S. C. 

" Major Bronaugh had a mind of no common character. An 
original keenness of perception, guided by an independence which 
demanded a comprehension of grounds, was developed by a 
thorough collegiate training and a wide reading. His thinking 
was remarkable for depth and thoroughness and accuracy. This 
lie showed in the different studies — Languages, Mathematics, 
Metaphysics — which engaged him as pupil and as teacher. He 
was not only careful in the collection and statement of facts — 
which made him a most accurate Greek scholar — but the quality 
of his mind impelled him to inquire into the reasons of facts; and 
he always endeavored to rest his views of language on the work- 
ings of the mind. His linguistic was always based on Psychology. 

" He had a marked preference for Mathematics and Metaphysics ; 
as Avas true also of Descartes and Pascal. He gave much atten- 
tion to ontological investigations, and his friends hoped that he 
would be able to give impulse to solid philosophical thought. At 
the same time, while he showed capacity to grasp the highest ques- 
tions relating to man's being and nature which have occupied 
philosophy, ha was able to make practical application of prin- 
ciples to his own especial work of instruction. He had an insight 
into the human mind, and an enthusiasm in training it, wliich 
made him a teacher of a very high order. And in all researches, 
in questions great and small, he was conscientious and earnest, 
governed by real desire to know the truth, and unhappy when he 
failed to reach it. This quality of truthfulness in intellect endeared 
him to those who knew him well, and excited high hopes of future 
eminence. In a position not specially favorable to prolonged and 
profound research, burdened with the daily toil of school-teach- 
ing, without the stimulus of a philosophical general community, 
he yet carried on certain trains of thought, year after year, with 
persistence, and in a measure with success. Under other circum- 
stances he might have become a scientific expounder of linguistic, 
a mathematician of high order, or an original metaphysical thinker. 

"His character presented a noteworthy combination of .sim- 
plicity and strength. He was gentle to women and children, simple- 



1862.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 163 



hearted and devoted in his affection, and courageous in main- 
taining his own rights and those of others. Highly sensitive to 
anything that seemed an imputation on his character, and deeply 
wounded at the alienation of a friend, he was brave and resolute 
in the face of danger or misfortune. • He had not many intimate 
friends. He rather showed indisposition to speak of his inner ex- 
perience, the thoughts that lay nearest to his soul. But this 
reserve he did not maintain towards his friends ; to them he ex- 
pressed himself freely, and confided in them fully. He was in all 
things generous and noble-minded, willing to sacrifice himself and 
his own interests for duty and friends." 



JOHN THOMAS JONES, 

Private in Belsher's Company, 5tti Alabama Infantry. 

John Thomas Jones was born in Winslow County, Missis- 
sippi, on the 16th day of February, 1840. His father, Thomas 
Jones, moved with his family to Pickens County, Alabama, in 
October, 1840, where he still resides, engaged in planting. His 
mother's name is Clementine Jones. 

Young JoxES, while yet of tender age, gave unmistakable 
evidence of rare endowments. At school he was studious, and his 
progress was marked. He was distinguished for that solid sense 
and for those sterling principles that would have secured him 
the highest success in any of th^ walks of life. Having finished 
his academic course, he spent two years at the University of Vir- 
ginia, where he advanced with great rapidity, and prepared for 
the profession of the Law. He studied his profession thoroughly. 
, The writer remembers his examination in open court for admis- 
sion to the bar ; no candidate ever stood a more ci'editable exami- 
nation. He was congratulated by the judge and members of the 
bar for his proficiency, and licensed to practice in the various courts 
of law and equity in Alabama. He opened an office in Carrol- 
ton in 1860, just before the commencement of the war between the 
States. 

Such was his application to business and to his studies, such his 
mental training and his solid sense, and such were his noble and 



164 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. ^j^^^^ 

manly qualities, that if peace had continued, young Jones would 
necessarily have obtained a large and lucrative practice, and liave 
achieved the highest distinction in his profession. But war came — 
his office was closed, and he hurried to the conflict. 

His conduct in the army is well described by Capt. Thad. C. 
Belsher, of Columbus, Miss., in whose company he served. That 
officer thus wrote : — "John T. Jones joined my company in the 
summer of 1861. He soon won the esteem of the entire company 
by his uniform, gentlemanly bearing; always performed his duty 
as a soldier without complaint, was obedient to officers, affiible and . 
courteous to all. At the battle of Cold Harbor, on the 27th 
June, 1862, a regiment from North Carolina became panic-stricken 
and retired. The 5tli Alabama was ordered to 'fill the gap.' 
Before making a charge into the swamp in our front, while the 
Colonel was arranging another part of the line, I made a little 
speech to my company, encouraging them to do their whole duty. 
Before I concluded, Jones was in tears, and when I finished he 
stepped forward and replied in a brief but eloquent speech, pledg- 
ing the honor of the company for their action in that battle. 
Soon the order ' Forward ! ' was received along the line. Jones 
was in advance of the company. 'My boys' met the enemy 
bravely ; all charged gallantly. The enemy fled in confusion, but 
soon rallied, re-formed, and made another stand. We again 
charged with impetuosity, and young Jones fell, fighting man- 
fully in advance of the main line. The enemy were routed and 
fled in confusion. We pursued them to the Cliickahominy, where 
we halted, and I sen|; back a detail to bury our dead and take 
care of our wounded. Jones was found dead where he fell, and 
there he was buried. A more gallant boy I never saw during the 
war." 

His letters to his parents and sister during that period are full 
of affiiction. He spoke often of death, but with the fullest 
assurance of a happy eternity. Nor did he ever write despond- 
ingly of the cause in which he was engaged. In one of his letters 
to his father he said : — " Do not be uneasy about me. Even if it 
should come to the worst, remember me, but do not regret me. 
Death can be but a temporary separation at most, and I had rather 
o-o before, than survive vou or my dear mother. I do not write 
thus to make you sad, but I cannot write otherwise than I feel. 
Our parting on that memorable morning in Pickensville is vividly 



1S62.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 165 

before me, and your last words are yet ringing in my ears. I have 
as far as possible kept your parting injunctions. Father, if this 
should be my last letter, I implore your forgiveness for the cold- 
ness or ingratitude with which I may at any time have returned 
your love." 

Again he wrote : — " Dear Parents — Do not be uneasy about 
me, for, sinful as I am and have been, I have put my trust in 
Christ. Whether I shall live or die, I believe all will be ordered 
for the best. It is a great consolation to believe you always 
remember me in your prayers." 

In his last letter to his parents, he said: — "You must all try 
to keep up your spirits. In a few weeks we shall know the 
worst. If anything occurs to me, I shall arrange it so you shall 
know by telegraph. Do not trouble yourselves with useless 
anxiety. If we never meet again, God grant that we may all meet 
where war and strife may cease, and parting be no more forever. 
My love to you all, parents, grandparents, my dear sister, and tlu; 
sweet little ones." 

In reference to removing the body of a soldier of his regiment 
who had fallen in Virginia, he thus expressed himself in a let- 
ter: — "I think it is in bad taste. It is true one feels lonely at 
the thought of sleeping in this distant land, where affection can- 
not strew his grave with>flowers ; but he has the pleasing assurance 
that he will rest in a laud hallowed by his efforts in the cause of 
liberty. If I fall, I only ask that you would, should it be pos- 
sible, visit the scenes of my soldier life and the spot which marked 
its close." 

His character for intellectual and moral worth is thus portrayed 
by one who, having been his school-mate, knew him intimately 
in his early life : — 

" JoxES was always what everybody would call ' a good boy.' 
ille was the first member of the family to become religious. At 
the age of thirteen he joined the Big Creek Baptist Church, near 
Carrolton, Alabama, and from this date his life was that of a pious 
and consistent Christian. While a mere boy, right was the great 
governing princij)le. If convinced that a certain course was right, 
he would persist in it with a modest firmness which would have 
done honor to one of riper years. On the other hand, he would, 
I believe, have died a martyr rather than pursue a course which 
iie believed to be wrong, especially if it were a matter of con- 



166 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[June, 



science or religion. This is saying much, I ara aware, but not 
too much for the moral courage of this noble boy; he was of the 
stuff of which martyrs are made. As a Christian, he even then 
exerted a positive moral influence, which was felt amid our sports 
and duties at school, as well as in his own family at home. 

"An incident which occurred somewhat later than the period 
just referred to, will illustrate his pious .thoughtfulness — his 
Christian courage. Near the time of our separation for college — 
for we attended different institutions — I spent a night with him. 
We sat up late and talked, among other things, of the dangers 
and temptations incident to college-life. Just before we retired 
he picked up his Bible, and with much feeling remarked: — 'It 
is my custom to read a chapter and pray before retiring. I want 
you to read, and lead in prayer to-night. Don't refuse.' Although 
I had never led in prayer before, his earnestness and deep solem- 
nity inclined me to yield to his request. After prayer was offered, 
he arose, and, with tears in his eyes, embraced me, expressing his 
delight at my compliance with his request and willingness to 
bear the cross as a Christian. I was deeply impressed at the 
time by this incident, and have often thought of it since. 

" He went first to the University of Alabama, then to tiie 
University of Virginia. While at both places, his letters bore 
the mark of a uniform and modest piety. I met him at home 
during his vacations. The topics and character of his conversa- 
tion, and the books with which he was most familiar, showed 
plainly that his piety had not suffered from the circumstances in 
which he had been placed. 

" This same religious constancy followed him through the trials 
of the soldier's life. As illustrative of this, the following, related 
by a reliable comrade in arms, is pertinent : — While we Avere at 
Mechanicsville, awaiting Jackson's signal-gun, an officer indulged 
pretty freely in remarks which smacked strongly of infidelity. 
He had silenced those whom he had been more directly address- 
ing, and appeared to be ' master of the field.' Jones, who had 
been an attentive but silent listener, modestly asked permission to 
say something in defence of Ciiristianity. He began in a low, 
conversational tone to answer all that had been said. As he pro- 
gressed he became more and more interested in his subject, until 
his whole soul was aroused, and quite a crowd had gathered 
around and were eagerly listening. The result was that the 



1S62.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 167 



officer was astonished and silenced, and they wlio had not pre- 
viously known the speaker, were inquiring who the little fellow 
was that had made such a defence of Christianity. 

"This incident illustrates not only his n)oral and religious 
character, but also that of his mind. One is ready to infer from 
it that he must have possessed siqierior mental powers. Such was 
the fact; though a boyish, yet not undignified reserve hid from the 
superficial observer or transient acquaintance the intellectual worth 
of tills young man. In him the mental and the moral were hap- 
pily blended. The quick and retentive memory, the correct 
•judgment, the delicate taste, susceptible of the highest degree of 
refinement, all characteristic of his vigorous and grasping mind, 
were sweetly harmonized by the spirit of fervid but unpretentious 
piety of tliis Christian soldier." 

A siiort time after the incident related above, the signal-gun 
was heard, and the command to march forward was given. The 
champion of the Christian religion went bravely forth to the 
defence of his country. 

The result is known. In accordance with his frequently 
expressed wishes, his remains have never been removed. His 
couch was sj)read on the field of battle, and the soldier still 
'' rests in a land hallowed by his efforts in the cause of liberty." 



JOHN TYLER REDWOOD, 

Private, Albemarle Artillery. 

John T. Redwood was the son of William Henry Redwood, 
of INlobile, Alabama. He was born in that city, A})ril 13, 1841. 
During his youth he lived four years with his uncle. Dr. LeRoy 
Anderson, in Sumpter County, and attended school from his res- 
idence. From Sumpter he was transferred to Virginia, and 
placed ill the school of Samuel Schooler, M. A., at Etlge Hill. 
Here, too, he remained four years, and during this period connected 
himself with the Episco^jal Church. From Mr. Schooler's he 
went, in October, 1860, to the University of Virginia. 

In the spring of 'Gl he wont with the company of students to 
Harper's Ferry, and after its return he obtained permission to 



168 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[June, 



enter the Virginia Military Institute. Here, however, his stay 
was short, for we find him in July with Gen. Johnston in the 
upper valley of Virginia, whence he followed hitn to the first 
battle of Manassas. By direction of the President he Avas honor- 
ably discharged from the service during the summer, and in the 
following October he returned to College. During this session 
he was distinguished at the intermediate examinations in the 
Senior Class of Latin and the Intermediate Class of Mathematics ; 
but before its close he was in the field again. 

In the spring of '62 he joined the " Albemarle Artillery." 
This company, after drilling a while in Richmond, was ordered 
to Yorktown, whence it retired with Johnston to Richmond. 
During the battles which soon after occurred, this battery being 
without field-pieces, was on duty at the fortifications about the 
city, and consequently did not participate in them. 

On the morning of June 27, Tyler Redwood, wishing to 
find the 3d Alabama regiment, obtained permission of his Cap- 
tain to go in search of it. Failing to find it, he joined a Georgia 
regiment, and went into the battle of Cold Harbor, where he was 
severely wounded in the ancle. From the field he was removed 
to the city and placed in the Richmond Female Institute, then 
used as a hospital. The foot was amputated, but during the 
month of July the soldier died. His father, and one of his 
brothers, — who also afterwards fell — were with him in his last 
(lays. He was buried from the Monumental Church, of which 
he had been a member since his school days at Edge Hill. 

An aged mother says of him, in her sorrowing, that he was a 
conscientious boy, a devoted and affectionate son, and a bright 
Christian. 



WILLIAM B. PEAKE, 

Private, "Montpelier Guards," Co. A, lath Va. Infantry. 

William Benjamin Peake was the eldest son of James B. 
and Lucy Jenkins Peake, and was born at Twyraan's Store, Spot- 
sylvania County, Virginia, December 11, 1833. His fiither was 
a well-to-do country merchant, and his mother the daughter of 



jgy.j-j . THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 169 

Benjamin Jenkins, Esq., a highly respected farmer residing in tlie 
vicinity, , 

Having passed through the usual routine of country schools, he 
sought and obtained, while yet a mere boy, a situation in a com- 
mercial house in the city of Richmond ; this he afterwards ex- 
changed for a clerkship in the office of the Richmond Whig. The 
duties of this position were not, however, congenial to his tastes; 
he was, besides, anxious to secure better mental training than he 
had received in the common schools, and accordingly, after a short 
stay in Richmond, probably a year, he entered Rapj)ahannock 
Academy, and took. up the study of the classics, with a view to 
preparation for a course at college. 

In the fall of 1854 he entered the University of Virginia, and 
continued there during two consecutive sessions. He accomplished 
little at college; and yet he was a remarkably gifted young man. 
He acquired rapidly, but was impatient of the constant and pro- 
longed application which ensured success. His conversational 
powers were brilliant, and, following the natural bent of his mind, 
he pursued a course of reading which contributed to his excellence 
in this direction. While others, aspiring to the honors of the 
University, were delving over etymologies and conning hard con- 
structions, he M'as tracing with some pleasant historian the route 
of the armies of antiquity. For the Greek plays he substituted 
the modern drama, and instead of racking his brain with the 
abstractions of Mathematics and Moral Philosophy, he revelled 
with the English wits. His abilities would have justified his 
friends in expecting him to be successful either upon the stage or 
as a popular essayist. His descriptions of persons and of scenes 
were so vivid that his language might be called 'pictiircsque. 
Humor, inherited through his mother, pervaded feis entire being, 
and discovered itself everywhere and in everything — in the ex- 
pression of his face, in the tone of his voice, in the simplest 
gesture. Without an effort he became the centre of every group, 
and without a word he would often hold a crowd long convulsed 
with laughter. 

While at the University he received a proposal to remove to 
the West and engage in the business of a teacher. Upon his 
arrival in Missouri he was not pleased with the prospects of the 
school, and declining to engage in it, agreed to go as draughtsman 
with a surveying party to Nebraska Territory. In this service 



170 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[June, 



he suffered both from the severity of the climate and from the 
dishonesty of his Yankee employer; he was defrauded of his 
earnings, and almost without resources, returned to Kansas 
City. Here an emigrating party had just been formed to go to 
Arizona, and Willie Peake, always ready for bold adventure, 
joined it. But, when the party reached JLl Paso, he abandoned 
it to become distributer to the Overland Mail Company from 
that point to Arizona. In this connection iiis financial experience 
was not more satisfactory, and disgusted with the fair promises 
and foul performances of his patrons, he returned to his native 
Virginia. 

In a few months after his return, the signs of political trouble 
were unmistakable. Willie watched them with intense concern, 
for his love of country amounted almost to a weakness. When a 
child, he had delighted most of all in the histories of the American 
Eevolution, and he gloated over the recital of British defeats. 
When thus rejoicing, one day, at the triumphs of the Continental 
forces, a gentleman said to him, "But, Willie, how do you like 
it when our men get whipped?" "Oh!" replied he, *' I don't 
read that part of the book; I skip over and read on." The 
instinctive childish patriotism that thrilled him then with pride 
in his country's success and glory, was but the logical antecedent 
of his indignation, as he contemplated the wrongs of the Southern 
States at the hands of the General Government. He became an 
advocate of Secession, and warmly urged it as the policy most 
honorable for A^irginia. And when his State withdrew from the 
Union, Willie, unlike some of those in his own vicinity who 
had claimed to be " original secessionists,'^ showed his faith by his 
works. 

Being a resident at that time of Orange, he joined the "Mont- 
pelier Guards," an old volunteer comjjany of the county, and set 
out on the 17th of April to Harper's Ferry. Thenceforward, 
until his death, his life was an offering to his country. 

No company achieved for itself a nobler name during the war, 
than did the Montpelier Guards. It formed part — was Com- 
pany A — of the 13th Virginia Infantry, whose name was a 
synonym for gallantry, and whose first commander was A. P. Hill. 
Its dead sanctify many a field of battle, from First Manassas to 
Appomattox; while its living heroes, wounded and maimed, still 
awaken sad memories of the past. Lewis B. Williams, its first 



I8f,2-| THE TJNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 171 

Captain, rose to the rank of Colonel, and fell at Gettysburg; 
Champ Cook, a beardless veteran, met his death while leading his 
company at First Cold Harbor; and Wilson Newman, "first 
among his equals," received his mortal wound at Winchester ; 
Thomas AVilroy shared a like fortune, while those of the rank and 
file, subordinate in this only, illustrated a courage not often 
equaled, perhaps never surpassed. Sergeant Thomas Littleton 
Goodwyn, John W. Moore, Ned Fry, George Martin Burruss, 
with his two brothers, Robert and Joseph, Ira S. and his brother 
L. Tandy Brockman, Alexander Thomas, Robert D. Powell, Hugh 
Powell, Asa Brockman, Richard Bernard, Hugh Atkins, Thomas 
Bledsoe, Marcellus Robinson, Robert Rogers, Halsey, Sizer, and 
others, sleep in soldiers' graves. 

In this company Willie Peake had an honorable name, and 
with what remains of it his memory is still fragrant. For his 
aptness for figures he was assigned to duty as a Commissary Ser- 
geant, a position which he held a greater part of his military life, 
but he not unfrequently volunteered to take his musket when the 
long-roll was sounded. Under Jackson, he participated in the 
battles of Front Royal and Winchester, and in the fight with Fre- 
mont he served as courier for General Elzey. When Jackson 
hastened from the Valley to help defend Richmond against 
McClellan, the route of his army brought Willie close to his 
father's house. He had then given up his office and gone back 
to the ranks, and he was urged, importuned, to stop and see his 
family. But he replied that no consideration could induce him 
to leave his command at that time; that no one should doubt his 
devotion to the cause he had espoused. And, 

" True to the last of his blood aucl his breath, 
Like a reaper he descended to the harvest of death." 

At Cold Harbor his heart was pierced by a bullet. 

A short time after his remains were brought home; funeral 
services were held at Mt. Hermon, the church of his youth, by 
the Rev. Herndon Frazer, his father's venerable pastor; and in 
sight of the home where he first saw the light, the soldier was laid 
away to his rest. 

While living, his character was imperfectly understood by most 
persons who knew him. Said a gentleman who, of all his friends, 
knew him probably most thoroughly: — "A seeming recklessness 
and indifference of manner led many to think him incapable of 



172 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. ..,„,, 

warm emotion or enduring attachment. But they mistook him; 
the light and frivolous bearing was not unfrequently the mask of 
a sad and sometimes over-sensitive spirit. Underneath Mas the 
deep current of warm friendship and lasting affection for those 
who had won his regard." He who can die for his country can 
love his friends. 



BENJ. C. GARLINGTON, 

Liieutenant-Colonel, 3d South Carolina Infantry. 

Benjamin Conway Garlington, third son of John and 
Susan W. Garlington, of Laurens Court House, South Carolina, 
was born November 4, 183G. He received his early education in 
the village academy at Laurens, taught iirst by Prof. Robert 
Garlington, and afterwards by the Rev. T. E. Wannamaker, who 
prepared him for the Sophomore Class in the South Carolina Col- 
lege. Entering this institution at an early age, he was a diligent 
student, and gave promise of graduating with distinction ; but in 
1856 an unfortunate collision occurred between some of the stu- 
dents and the police, which resulted in a temporary suspension of 
College exercises. With this disturbance, however, young Gar- 
lington was in no way connected, and accordingly, wishing to 
pursue his studies quietly, he sought and obtained from the 
Faculty a certificate of honorable withdrawal. In the fall of 1857 
he became a student in the academic course at the University of 
Virginia, where he enjoyed the full confidence and respect of his 
Professors and fellow-students. After spending a pleasant vaca- 
tion at his home during the following summer, he returned at the 
opening of the session of 1858-59, and devoted himself to the 
study of Law. He had just been admitted, in Columbia, to the 
Courts of South Carolina, and had returned home with the inteu- 
tion of opening an office in his native village, when a call was 
made by the Governor of the State for soldiers to defend her 
borders from an invading foe; and this gallant young man was 
among the first to offer himself and the noble company of "State 
Guards," of which he was Captain. 

The offer was, of course, accej^ted, and the State Guards became, 



1802.] 



\ 

THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 173 



when nmstered into the service of tlie Confederate States, Com- 
pany A, oil South Carolina Infantry. From the bombardment of 
Fort Siimpter to the battles around Richmond in 1862, Captain 
Garlingtox was not absent, even once, from the post of duty. 
Such attention to his command, such devotion to the sacred cause 
in which he was engaged, could not fail to produce its legitimate 
results. It was no moan compliment, therefore, when, upon a 
reorganization of the regiment, he was elected Lieutenant- 
Colonel. In this command, one of the most efficient in material, 
drill, and discipline, he bore the reputation of an officer of rare 
and extraordinary promise. 

At the battle of Savage Station, June 29, 1862, he fell mortally 
wounded, and died on the field. In the charge in wliicli he lost 
ids life, it is said thai he was conspicuouly prominent, moving 
hither and thither, animating and encouraging his men. And when 
his vitals had been pierced by a minie ball, he announced with the 
coolest intrepidity his condition to those around him, and then 
urged them forward with the words, " Charge, boys, charge ! 
Forward, my brave men ! " 

When night came on, and General Sumner had withdrawn 
across White Oak Swamp, Colonel Gaelington's comrades found 
Jiim lying perfectly straight upon his back, with his hands folded 
upon his breast, and his sword standing with the point in the 
ground by his side ! How cool and self-possessed must have been 
his mind at that time ! His attitude and features bespoke no 
thought of fear, or even pain, so calm was he in that awful death- 
hour, when left alone with his God ! 

Colonel Gaklt]sgton was a man of high promise, both in the 
profession which he had chosen and in that which was thrust upon 
him by the event of the war. That he was efficient in the school 
of the soldier, and in all the high qualities of the officer, those of 
his gallant command who survive, will testify. That he was pos- 
sessed of the truest courage, the circumstances of his death abun- 
dantly prove. Had he been permitted to consummate tlie lif; 
that was opening before him, he must, with abilities that fitted him 
for the field and the forum, have taken a position in his State 
among the most honored of her sons. 

His aged parents, two brothers, Creswell and Stobo, of Laurens, 
and two sisters, Mrs. John L. Young, of Union, and Mrs. 11. \V. 
Simpson, of Pendleton, South Carolina, are left to mourn his loss. 



174 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[June, 



Of the four brothers who at once, and together, answered their 
country's call, only the two above-named remain. John, the 
youngest, after passing safely through the first battle of Manassas, 
those around Richmond, and those of the Maryland campaign, 
fell at Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862 — fell, no less beloved, 
no less regretted than his older and more distinguished brother, 
under whom he enlisted. 

The two brothers lie buried side by side in the village grave- 
yard, at Laurens, the removal of their bodies from the battle-fields 
affording a melancholy pleasure to their bereaved parents. And 
these, while called upon, thus, to mourn the early deaths of those 
whose lives would have given them the highest earthly comfort, 
have still all the consolation that can spring from the sympathy 
of the public, from the pure characters of the deceased, and from 
the reflection that to fall in defence of an imperiled country is not 
to die meanly. 

Colonel Garlington was grandson of Edwin Garlington and 
great-grandson of Christopher and Elizabeth Conway Garlington, 
of Lancaster county, Virginia. On the maternal side, he was 
great-grandson of Richard Parke Stobo, of South Carolina, who 
was a grandson of the Rev. Archibald Stobo, a Presbyterian cler- 
gyman who landed in Charleston from Scotland, in the year 
1700. His mother's father was Benjamin James, of Laurens, 
third son of John James, of Stafford county, Virginia. His rela- 
tives in the Old Dominion are numerous, including such names 
as the Conways, Moncures, Howes, Vowleses, and Washingtons. 

He was a man of commanding form, handsome face, and 

elegant manners ; possessed a clear and vigorous intellect, and was 

a graceful speaker. Long will his friends remember his last 

address to the ''State Guards," before they left their homes for 

the uncertain field — and especially the quotation referring to their 

return, 

" And we'll come back in glory, 
Or come not again ! " 

Sad indeed is the remembrance that he "came not again." 
Reared in the lap of affluence, gr-atified in all his wishes, so far as 
consisted with his best interests, beloved by all, his young life was 
as a sunbeam, shedding light and happiness on those who came 
within its influence. In the social circle he was unrestrained and 
full of life and humor. His conversation was chaste, as his habits 



j8g.2-| THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 175 

were strictly temperate. His high principles, generous disposi- 
tion, and courteous bearing preserved for hira in the army, the 
popularity which he had at home. And it may be mentioned, in 
evidence of the high regard in which his memory is held by his 
comrades and friends, that such a number of their children are 
being called for him, that "Conway " has become quite a common 
name. 

Colonel Gaelixgton's man-servant, who had played with him 
and watched over him in his childhood, was deeply moved when he 
heard that his " young master " was going into service, and insisting 
on going with him, served him faithfully through all the hard- 
ships of his soldier life. 



MELZAR ALLEN JENKINS, 

2d Sergeant Co. D, 36. Virginia Infantry. 

This young man died at Winder Hospital, Richmond, Va., 
August 26, 1862, of a wound received at the battle of Fra- 
zier's Farm. The son of John Baker and Margaret Ann 
Jenkins, he was born in Southampton county, Virginia, Febru- 
ary 26, 1842. His father, who is a native of Nansemond county, 
is still living, and has spent the greater part of his life in agri- 
cultural and mercantile pursuits. His mother, who was the 
daughter of Allen and Ann Dauglitry, also of Nansemond, was 
married at an early age — before the completion of her education. 
A woman of good mind and amiable character, she was also a de- 
voted Cliristian, and an exemplary member of the Baptist Church. 
She now rests by the side of her son, having passed from this life 
September 3d, 1866, after months of suffering which she bore 
with that resignation which became her profession. 

Melzar's early education was obtained in the schools of the 
neighborhood. He was afterwards sent to Buckhorn Academy, in 
Hertford county, N. C, and subsequently to Reynoldson Insti- 
tute, in Gates county, N. C, when he was thorouglily prepared 
for College. At Reynoldson he applied himself with that per- 
severing diligence which caused his brilliant mind to display itself 
in its best colors, eliciting from his learned preceptors the seem- 



176 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. ^j^^^^ 

ingly extravagant, though deliberate declaration, that " lie Mas the 
most intellectual boy they ever knew." He entered tlie Univer- 
sity of Virginia in October, 1858, and for two years devoted 
himself to the study of the academic course. 

He was one of the original members of Company D, 3u Vir- 
ginia Infantry, which was organized IMay 3d, 18G1. He entered 
the array as a private — at the reorganization was elected 2d Ser- 
geant, and continued as such until his death. He did not desire 
office, and refused several times to fill vacancies that occurred in 
his company. Finally, however, under the urgent request of liis 
Captain, he consented to do so, and had he been witii his com- 
mand just before his death, he would have been made Lieutenant; 
but owing to the doubt of his recovery, and the urirent need of 
officers on duty with the company at the time, the appointment 
was not made. * 

From the beginning he trod the path of the true soldier. He 
passed gallantly through the Peninsula campaign — the battle of 
Seven Pines — and those around Richmond, to the SOth June, 1862, 
when, at Frazier's Farm he was fatally wounded by a minie ball, 
which entered the leg near the knee-joint. The wound after- 
wards communicated with the joint, gradually exhausting him. 
Several weeks before his death, he professed faith in the Great 
Redeemer, to whom, unto the end, he committed his soul. 



WILLIAM A. WRIGHT, 

Captain Co. F, 55th Vlrgiuia Infantry. 

Among the Confederate battle-flags that were furled at Appo- 
mattox Court House was tliatof the Fifty-fifth Virginia Infantry. 
It was a tattered and weather-beaten thing, but to those who had 
followed it until then, it was still " a tiling of beauty," which tliey 
would have worn about their hearts forever. On its faded folds 
were inscribed the names of nearly every field whicli tlie Army of 
Northern Virginia had fought, from Mechanicksville to that place. 
And these names were not simply reminders of their part with 
Field's Brigade in opening the battles around Richmond, of their 
proud privilege of protecting the wounded Jackson at Ciiancel- 



1802.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 177 



lorsville, of General Lee's official compliment to their bravery, 
and of the many terrible conflicts in which tlieir efficiency had 
contributed to secure victory ; but, to the old regiment now a])out 
to be disbanded, they stood each as a sort of In Memoriam to their 
honored comrades who had fallen here and there by the way, even 
marking with monumental precision the resting-place of their 
dead heroes. Many a time, in the quiet camp, when their colors, 
sporting with the wind like a thing of life, showed o;ie after 
another, in quick succession, the names they had heli)c';l to make 
historic, the soldiers whose eyes chanced to be ujton their flag, 
found themselves sweeping rapidly over the past and fighting their 
battles again ; and then they thought sadly, yet jjroadly, of ''' the 
beauty of Israel slain in their high places." And they were 
worthy to be thought of thus; for among the dead of tl'.e 55th 
were such men as Colonel Francis INIallory, Majors Saunders, 
Thomas M. Burke, and Charles Lawson ; Caj^tains Elliott M. 
Healey, Austin Brokenbrough, Geoi'ge Street, and Wm. Latane 
Brooke; Lieutenants John R. Mann, Robert G. Haill, Logan 
Fleet, Charles Roy, John Tupman, Leonard Henley, Thomas Bul- 
lock, and Sergeant-Majors John G. Gordon and William Rowzie 
with a multitude of others representing the bravest and the best 
of the counties of Essex, Westmoreland, Middlesex, and Spot- 
sylvania. 

The name of Captain William Alfred Weight, Company 
F, ' Essex Sharp Shooters,' belongs also to this list, and among 
the first that fell. He was the eldest child of William Alfred and 
Charlotte Wright, of Tappahannock, Virginia, and was born in 
that place, February 23, 1832. His father was the eldest sou of 
Edward and Mary Pitts Wright, of Wrightsville, King and 
Queen county, and grandson of William Wright, M'ho witJi two 
brothers, James and Thomas, emigrated from Scotland early 
in the last century, and took up large tracts of land in Essex and 
the borders of King and Queen. His mother was the youngest 
daughter of the late Richard and Rebecca Roane Barnes. He 
thus numbered among his ancestors ardent soldiers of the Revo- 
lution and eminent jurists of later times. 

The briglit childhood of William Wright passed without 
anything to mar or specially mark it. The first quality he dis- 
covered was the spirit of unselfishness, which developed with age 
into that of self-sacrifice for the good of others. His modesty in 
12 



178 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL, ^j^^^.^ 

youth grew into diffidence, and this Avas accompanied with so 
great frankness that those who knew him but partially, regarded 
him as blunt and uncouth. 

As the oldest of six children, he was the object of especial par- 
ental training. After the ordinary curriculum in primary schools, 
he was sent to Fleetwood Academy and there prepared for College. 
In 1849 he entered the University of Virginia, and took the 
schools of Moral Philosophy and Law, in the first of which he 
received a diploma. The next year he devoted himself exclu- 
sively to the study of Law, after which he returned to Tappa- 
hannock, and having been received into partnership by his father, 
who was a prominent practitioner at that bar, he entered upon a 
career of great promise. 

In 1858 the death of his father devolved upon him the cai'e of 
a large family, many of wliom were yet to be educated. But to 
his widowed mother he became at once a thoughtful adviser, to 
his brothers and sisters an elder brother indeed, and to the sorrow- 
ing servants a humane master. It was a difficult office to assume, 
with all its weighty responsibilities; but he felt their weight far 
more keenly when, three years after, it became evident that the 
country was to be involved in war. There was no conflict between 
his sympathy and his judgment as to the course he should pursue; 
yet in view of a struggle, which he believed would be both long 
and bloody, and into which he was sure his two younger brothers 
would plunge with all the ardor of youth, he Avas oppressed, by a 
sense of the value of his life to the helpless family of which he 
was the head. With such ties to bind him at home, with the 
thoughts of mother and sisters thus pressing upon his mind and 
casting a shade of seriousness over his cheerful face, he was among 
the first to enter the lists for his country's defence. In doing this 
lie believed he was discharging his highest duty to his family also. 

The ''Essex Sharp Shooters" were organized sometime pre- 
vious to the war. This company, in which AVilliam Weight held 
the office of 1st Lieutenant, was mustered into service in the spring 
ot' 1861, and sent to a point on the lower Rappahannock to erect 
the fortifications afterwards known as Fort Lowry. Here other 
companies gathered from the neighboring counties, and the 55tli 
Virginia Infantry was organized, under command of Colonel 
Francis Mallory, of Norfolk. When this fort was evacuated the 
regiment retired to Fredericksburg, and afterwards to Richmond, 



i8oa.] 



THE UNTVEESITY MEMORIAL. 179 



where, in Fields' brigade, it shared the honor of beginning the 
battle of Mechanicksville, July 26, 1862. 

About this time Lieutenant Wright was promoted to the com- 
mand of his company, which he led to battle day after day with 
singular gallantry. At Gaines' Mill his brother, Richard Ed- 
ward, was severely wounded in the head and borne from the field. 
When he recovered and returned to duty, it was to fight under 
another Captain, for William Wright had then long since 
" finished his course." 

On Monday, June 30, 1862, he fell mortally wounded in the 
grand attack of Longstreet and A. P. Hill upon the enemy's pow- 
erful centre at Frazier's Farm. Captain Wright, at the head 
of his company, was charging a Federal battery, and just as the 
prize was taken he was pierced through the body by a musket ball, 
which, cutting his empty canteen, entered his left side just below 
the heart and came out to the right of his spine. He sunk to tiie 
earth in the midst of his men, his sword escaping from the relaxed 
grasp and falling loosely upon the field. Realizing quickly the 
serious nature of his wound, he begged his comrades who were 
carrying him to the rear, to leave him and return to those who 
might recover if cared for; but in spite of his entreaties, the faith- 
ful soldiers bore him from the battle-ground and sent him in an 
ambulance to the hospital in the woodland adjacent. On the way 
he complained of internal uneasiness and asked that his sword belt 
might be unbuckled ; when this was done, the copious discharge 
of blood, which had been stayed by the belt, quickly exhausted 
his strength. A few words testifying his love for the cause to 
which he gave his life, broken messages of devotion to that family 
which he must now commit to God, affectionate adieus to those who 
gathered around him as he lay in the arms of one of his men, and 
William Alfred Wright was dead. A letter taken from his 
pocket and bearing his address, was pinned to his breast, and he 
was left amid the multitude of dead and wounded. 

Tlie next evening Thomas R. B. Wright, one of the remaining 
brothers, came in search of the body. Having readily identified 
it, his next effort was to get it transported to Richmond for burial. 
Two Confederate officers, with limbs ampuiated, lay near by. 
Their attention had been drawn to the body (for, as a soldier 
recently remarked, " he was a handsome and noble-looking ofiicer"), 
and they watched with apparent interest the approach and move- 



180 THE UNIVERSITY LIEMOEIAL. [j,^,_^.^ 

inents of the young man wliose head v/as bo\vecl with grief. 
Perceiving their interest, he tokl them Ins stoty and committed 
his dead brother to tlieir custody until he could secure a convey- 
ance. Very soon he returned with a wagon, but the officers, not 
recognizing him, forbade the removal of the body, saying that it 
had been confided to their care. Tlie needed explanation was 
made, when tlie noble men apologized for an act of fidelity, which 
was worthy of all praise. Mr. AYright, moved to tears of grati- 
tude, thanked them for the interest they had manifested, and 
placing the body of his brother by that of a Georgian who had 
been killed in the same battle, set out to Richmond to inter it. 

The great current of stirring events swept on, while the widow- 
ed mother wept among her daughters, over the loss of her first- 
born. Richard Wright recovered, after a time, from his severe 
wound, and returned to his regiment. Thomas, after the first year 
of the war, had secured a transfer from the 2d Richmond Hov/it- 
zers to the same command, and the two brothers were fighting 
under the same flag. On the 30th September, 1864, at Peters- 
l)urg, Virginia, they both fell side by side under the same hostile 
volley. Richard, shot through the head, died instantly, within 
the enemy's lines ; Thomas recovered, but with the loss of a limb, 
and still lives to minister to his bereaved family. 

The body of Richard Wright was never recovered ; that of 
Captain William Alfred Weight was removed to Indian 
Neckj in Essex county, where it rests beside the ashes of his father. 



CHARLES ELLIS MUNFORD, 

2d Lieutenant, Letcher Artillery. 

Munford is a good name in Virginia ; in her annals its repre- 
sentatives have an honorable record. In the piping days of peace 
they were her friends, and served her faithfully and efficiently in 
places of high official trust. When her sky was overcast with 
clouds, upon which the finger of a man's hand wrote in red 
characters the fearful heraldry of war, they did not shrink from 
the crisis. 

Colonel George Wythe Munford served his native State for 



is^o] THE UNIVERSITY MEMoiUAL. 181 

many years iu various capacities, he and his father before liini 
having filled the office of Clerk to the House of Delegates for forty 
years. In 1853 he was elected Secretary of the Commonwealth of 
Virginia. This position he continued to hold until the close of 
the late war, when all the time-honored landmarks of the State 
Government were removed, and the high character for official 
capacity and faithfulness was substituted by the spirit of rapacity. 

Colonel Munford was twice married. His two sons by the first 
marriage, William and Thomas T., were both prominent in the 
Confederate service; the former as Lieutenant-Colonel of the 17th 
Virginia Infantry, the latter for a long while as Colonel of the 2d 
Virginia Cavalry, from which position he was promoted, just 
before the close of the war, to the rank of Brigadier-General of 
Cavalry. 

Charles Ellis Munford was the eldest child by the second 
marriage. His mother was Miss Elizabeth T. Ellis, daughter of 
Charles Ellis, Esq., of Richmond, for many years a prominent 
merchant of that city, and sister to the gentleman of that name 
now President of the Richmond and Petersburg Rail Road. He 
was born in Richmond, October 27, 1839. 

Remarkable always for his integrity and firmness of purpose, 
he did not, until his fifteenth year, evince any fondness for books. 
At that time he joined some debating society connected with his 
school, and in it his ambition was first aroused. The following 
year he entered the Hanover Academy, as a pupil of Lewis Minor 
Coleman, from Avhom his parents received frequent testimonials 
of his good standing. At the close of his course at the Academy, 
he was elected by his society to deliver the Valedictory Address, 
in which he acquitted himself with great credit. 

Having decided, with his father's full consent, to make the Law 
his profession, lie accordingly spent the winter of '58-9 reading 
. and submitting to the severe questionings of Governor Wise, who, 
thus brought into intimate association with him, conceived for him 
an affection which lasted through life. When in 1SG2, Ellis 
Munford had filled a soldier's grave, that gentleman — himself 
then a soldier too — thus wrote of him to the stricken father, from 
his " Headquarters, Chaffin's Farm, July 5th " : — " He was my child 
in arms, and I loved him almost like a son of my own bosom. A 
sweeter youth never lived to make a parent hopeful of all his 
future life and sure of his blissful immortality. There was no 



182 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [-j^,,,^ 

forwardness in him, save that his manliness exceeded his age, and 
that was exceeded by his soft sweetness of affection. He was 
innocent and pure as he w-as sincere and staunch in principles of 
the best school of gentlemen." 

In October, 1859, he entered the University of Virginia, took 
both classes in the Law School, and applied himself vigorously to 
study. The next session he returned to college, was distinguished 
at the intermediate examination on " Common and Statute Law" 
and had every reasonable hope of graduation. When, in the 
spring, hostilities begun, his father was so anxious he should 
finish his law-course that he at first deterred him from relinquishing 
his studies. He soon found, however, that Ellis was not to bo 
restrained ; his letter from Harper's Ferry, whither from a sick- 
bed he had hurried to assist in saving the arsenal, was the first 
notice his parents had of his leaving the University. During this 
expedition he performed the duties of Quarter-master's Sergeant. 

Soon after the return of the students from Harper's Ferry, 
Ellis Munford joined General Wise, and accompanied him to 
Western Virginia, where he served, without commission, in various 
official capacities. As Assistant Adjutant of Artillery under Col- 
onel Gibbes, he marched from Staunton to Gaiiley, where he re- 
mained some time as drill-master, and thence to Charleston, at 
which place he was prostrate with pneumonia when Colonel 
Patton won his brilliant victory at Searcy's Creek. ' I can't re- 
member" — wrote General Wise to Colonel Munford under 
date May 4, 1869, — " I can't remember exactly the date when he 
came to me, but he was v/ith a class of young men of his age and 
standing, such as Frank Imboden, young Kinney, of Staunton, 
Bradfute and Barksdale Warwick, my son Ilichard, and I had to 
give them all such detail as drill-officers in infantry and artillery, 
as inspectors, and sometimes as officers of distant posts, all without 
commissions. And no one performed his part in all respects 
more like a gentleman and soldier of intellect and courage than 
Ellis Munford. 

" The last time I recollect him on duty was whilst I was at 
'Camp Defiance' on the eastern peak of the Big Sewell. There 
we had a flow of beeves from the Kanawha Valley. Fresh pro- 
visions were in waste in spite of all that could be done ; there was 
no economy in the Commissary Department. Many more beeves 
were slaug-htered than was necessarv, T had detailed Lieutenant 



18U2.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 183 



MuNFORD to inspect the slaughtering ; see that no more were 
killed than necessary ; that the heads were not thrown away, and 
that all the meat was dealt ont. Dnring his execution of this 
order, General Lee came up to me from Floyd, to judge between 
him and me and to make a thorough inspection of my position, 
and the condition of my camp. 

" Young MuNFORD had done his duty wonderfully, in reforming 
the economy and cleanliness of the beef department. But in spite 
of all his diligence and vigilance, General Lee found some quar- 
ters of beeves on the road-side spoiling, and I called up Lieutenant 
MuxFORD to see the failure, to have the ground cleaned and the 
beef saved. I shall never forget the mortification of the gallant 
boy, and I don't even now cease to regret that I ever called his 
attention to the apparent failure. It was the only instance thati 
ever knew of even a seeming omission of duty on his part. Im- 
mediately after this I was ordered to turn ray command over to 
General Floyd, and I left him with it, according to ray recollection 
now. My Legion was brigaded in the spring of 1862. Young 
MuNFORD joined the Letcher Battery of Artillery, and the next 
I heard of him, your son, like my own, had fallen, and his end 
was exactly what I anticipated." 

It was in February, of 1862, that the Letcher Artillery was 
fully organized under the command of Captain Greenlee Davidson, 
formerly A. D. C. to the Governor, after whom the battery was 
named. The company was mustered into the service of the Con- 
federate States February 17th, with Ellis Munford as 2d Lieu- 
tenant. Early in May it was ordered to Fredericksburg, and re- 
mained there until called to the defence of Richmond. In one of 
his letters, written about this time, he said : "Orders have come 
for us to be in readiness to march. I hope it is onward, though 
if there is to be any fighting near Richmond, I want to be there." 

Wiicn the first alarm of an attack on the Mechanicksville Turn- 
pike reached him, he was on sick-leave and under the care of 
Dr. Gibson, in Richmond. "An eruption resembling a feverish 
scar had appeared on his neck, causing intense pain, and in the 
opinion of his physician, deserving the most serious treatment." 
Lieutenant Wm. E. Tanner, of the same battery, was also at his 
home in the city, convalescing from a spell of illness. Late in the 
morning of June 26th, Lieutenant Munford, who through his 
father had learned that an engagement was imminent, sought his 



184 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



brother-officer and informed him of tlie fact. After a, brief con- 
sultation, they both set off for the field and were soon with the 
battery, which shortly after began to annoy the enemy's left flank, 
while General Hill made the attack in front. 

It was at Malvern Hill that the Letcher Artillery first won for 
itself a place in history. This was the last act in the Seven Days' 
drama. McClellan, who, like a wounded lion, had been slowly 
retiring since the conflict at Cold Harbor, until communication 
was opened with his gunboats on the James river, now turned at 
bay upon his pursuers. Malvern Hill is an elevated plateau 
about a mile and a quarter in length by three-fourths in width. 
Its front was densely skirted with woods, while its rear, rising by 
gentle slope, was crowned by a plantation dwelling. Upon this 
crest McCIellan's splendid artillery was massed, and su]>ported by 
his infintry, which rested under cover of the hollows behind, the 
line curving backward on the right nearly to the river. His guns, 
probably sixty in number, thus swept at every point the open 
space in front, and one of his officers, boasting of the advantage 
of the Federal position, said : — " We'll clothe this hill in sheets of 
flame he/ore they take itJ' 

It was General Lee's plan to bring forward a strong force of 
artillery to silence the enemy's guns, and then hurl his whole line 
upon the heights and take them by storm ; but owing to the nature 
of the ground, the artillery could not be rapidly concentrated, 
" Two batteries," says a cotemporary account of this battle, 
" Grimes' and the 2d Richmond Howitzers, were ordered to take 
position in the cleared field, some fifty yards from the edge of the 
forest. Grimes' Battery, while in the act of taking its ground, 
was thrown into hopeless confusion by the killing and wounding 
of most of its horses, and never did get into position ; whereupon 
the Purcell Battery, Captain Pegram, was ordered to re[)lace it. 
The Howitzers and Captain Pegram's battery opened a well- 
directed fire on the enemy, but the return fire was so deadly, they 
were compelled to withdraw. . . . The Letcher Artillery, of six 
pieces, under command of Captain Davidson, was now ordered to 
the spot until now occupied by the Purcell Battery, and getting 
their guns quickly in place despite the tempest of iron, commenced 
to serve them with the greatest efficiency, firing fifteen discharges 
to the minute, while an infantry column advanced through the 
cleared space to storm the enemy's batteries." Onward it moved, 



1 i,^> J THE UjS'IVEKSITY memopjal. 185 

up the crimsoned slope and through the baptism of smoke, nearer 
and nearer the hostile guns, but growing smaller and smaller, 
until at length it reeled under the concentrated fire and retired in 
confusion. " The Letcher Battery still held its ground," and 
according to the Annual Report of the Board of Visitors of the 
Virginia Military Institute — to which some of its guns were 
afterwards donated — ''was in action one hour and twenty minutes, 
in a position which, from a subsequent survey of the havoc made 
by the enemy, would appear to have been utterly untenable for a 
much shorter time." It had indeed fought with heroic valor; a 
caisson had exploded in their midst, yet they continued their fire 
as if giving a holiday salute. 

But did the fame it won compensate for the loss it suffered ? 
Twenty-two, killed and wounded, lay around their guns ; among 
the killed. Lieutenant Charles Ellis Munford. 

\yhen ordered into battle, that young officer had waved an 
adieu to friends who stood by him, with so sweet a smile that none 
would have supposed him conscious of the danger he was plung- 
ing into. Absorbed at once by the duties of his position, his eye 
ran rapidly over the men under his command. Among them were 
some who were very difficult to discipline ; one, especially, seemed 
thoroughly hardened, not hesitating even to resist the authority of 
his officers. Lieutenant Muxford, almost in despair of making 
a soldier of him, had recently put him under arrest for some grave 
offence. But during the fight this man displayed a most extra- 
ordinary courage : wdierever the dead fell fastest, there he seemed 
to find his duty. Noticing his gallant conduct, Muxford dashed 
up to him, seized his hand, and said : — " I have come to ask you 
to forget what I did to you. You have shown yourself a hero 
to-day ; you cannot again be W'liat you have been.' Hereafter, be 
not the hero of a day, but of all time." 

These were almost his last words before he fell; but they were 
" apples of gold in pictures of silver." As by magic, they thrilled 
the soul of the degraded man, and seemed to transform his very 
being. A few moments more, and the lips that uttered them were 
silent forever, and the countenance just now glowing with the 
inspiration of battle, was resuming its pleasant smile and settling 
into the repose of death. The soldier sought and obtained per- 
mission to bear the body from the field. When he delivered his 
charge to the friends of the dead Lieutenant, his rough face was 



186 THE UKIVEESITY MEMORIAL. [j^jy^ 

wet with tears, and lie said to them, as with the promptings of a 
new life, " He was the first who ever saio any good in me, or thought 
me capable of belter things. I shall never forget him." Happy 
the man Avho is remembered thus ! 

The family of Ellis Munpord had the mournful pleasure — 
denied, alas ! to so many others under like bereavement — of fol- 
lowing his remains to the grave. He was buried in Hollywood 
Cemetery, near Richmond, his pastor, the Rev. Dr. Charles 
Miunegerode conducting the funeral services. 



BENJAMIN H. HARRISON. 

Captain Charles City Cavalry. 

Their praise is hymn'd by loftier liarps than mine ; 

Yet one I Avoiild select from that proud throng, 
Partly because they blend me "witli his line, 

And partly that bright names will hallow song, 
And his was of tlie bravest ; and when showered 

The death-bolts deadliest the thinn'd files along. 
Even where the thickest of war's tempest lower'd, 

They reach'd no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard." 

Childe Harold — Canto IH. 

Benjamin Harrison Harrison was born Feb. 5th, 1828, 
at Upper Brandon, on James River. 

He was the eldest son of Wm. B. Harrison, of Brandon, and of 
Mary Randolph Harrison, daughter of the late Randolph Har- 
rison of Clifton, in Cumberland county. He was the seventh in 
descent from Benjamin Harrison who first took up lands in the 
Colony in 1635. 

When sixteen years old he was placed at Concord Academy 
under the late Frederick Coleman, and during a stay of several 
years, gained the esteem and respect of that able instructor, by his 
ffood conduct and considerable talent. 

At the University of Virginia, he graduated the first year, 
with high honor, in the School of Mathematics under the lamented 
Courtney, although kept from his studies for more than a month 
by an injury to one of his eyes. His bad health cut short his stay 
at College, and he returned to his father's estate. At the age of 
twenty-five he married Mary Randolph Page, daughter of the 



IS,;-] TIIH UNLVKKSITY MEMORIAL. 187 

late Nelson Page, of Cumberland, and settled at the Rowe, au 
estate on James River, iu the lower end of Charles City. 

He foresaw the impending troubles ; and assisted in forming a 
Company of Cavalry in which, as Lieutenant, on the breaking out 
of hostilities, he joined the Peninsular army under General 
Magruder. 

He served at the battle of Bethel and in several skirmishes ; 
and on the reorganization of the army, being elected Captain of his 
company, he was detached with liis troop to be near his General's per- 
son. In this capacity he served in the retreat through the Penin- 
sula and iu the operations before Richmond, previous to the Seven 
Days' figlits. At the battle of Malvern Hill, July 1st, 1862, he 
did signal service in rallying the broken iufantry; and when a 
battalion, routed, returned from the fatal hill without a leader, he 
reformed and offered to lead them in person. Again they charged 
with Harrison, sword in hand, at their head ; and when within a 
few yards of the enemy, he fell, pierced with seven wounds, in the 
fore front of the fight. His body was found by a faithful friend 
and follower early next morning, conveyed to his family, and 
buried on the Upper Fork of Willis River, in Cumberland 
county. In person he was singularly commanding, being six feet, 
two and a half inches in height, with a classic head, an eye pene- 
trating though gentle, and a dignity and urbanity of manner that 
impressed all who saw him. With strong passions, he had few if 
any enemieSo He possessed the rare faculty of exacting obedience, 
while he acquired the love of his followers. It is more than pro- 
bable that his rise would have been very rapid in the Confederate 
service. 

His whole heart was in the cause of Southern independence. 
To effect it he would have made any sacrifice ; and the desperate 
assault he led, he undertook in the conviction of meeting death. 

His General fully appreciated his character and services. In 
his report of his military operations, he says : 

" The noble, accomplished, and gallant Harrihon, Captain of 
the Charles City troop, uniting his exertions with my own, ral- 
lied regiment after regiment, and leading one of them to the front, 
fell pierced with seven wounds, near the enemy's batteries." 

In a letter to a relative of the fallen soldier, he says : — "I write 
ill great haste, but deem it proper to say here that which I omitted 
to state in my report, that your brother volunteered to lead the 



188 THE TJNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. ^ju,y, 

troops in the great and decisive battle of Malvern Hill — leaving 
his own company in charge of a subaltern, and acting on this occa- 
sion on my staif, his cavalry not being engaged that day. 

"This charge was decisive of the great victory of Malvern Hill, 
and your brother was eminently instrumental in securing it." 

The following graceful tribute, from the pen of an official in 
the Department of War, appeared in the newspapers of the day : 

" Fell on the battle-field of Tuesday, the 1st of July, Captain 
Benjamin H. Haerison, eldest son of Wm. B. Harrison, Esq., 
of Upper Brandon, aged about 33 years. 

" Of the many sacrifices offered there on the altar of patriotism 
and duty, none was more worthy. 

" Brave, modest, devoted as a soldier and a man, his character 
endeared him to all who knew him. Nature had gifted him richly 
with intellectual powers of a very high order, improved by care- 
ful culture, with a large, warm heart, womanly tenderness, affec- 
tions ardent and true, and a dauntless spirit. 

" He saw the coming storm before the secession of Virginia, and 
raised a troop of cavalry to aid in the defence of his mother State. 
Worthy to bear a name which Virginia has been pleased for a 
century and a half to honor, he has given his life to the State to 
which his ancestors gave their labor. A friend who knew and 
loved him, makes this brief record of his manly virtues. K." 

The biographer may be often guilty of partiality, but this was 
one of those cases in which nature makes atonement for her many 
imperfections. This light was not hid under a bushel, but was 
widely known through the army. Without fear, therefore, the 
writer awards due merit to this exalted character. Other names 
have been or will be for centuries the theme of tongues ; but 
neither the hero stricken at Lutzen, the gentle Falkland M'ho 
fell at Newbury, nor that Christian, Vicars, who perished in the 
trenches before Sebastopol, ever marched to death with more loyal 
devotion than the modest gentleman who on the fatal field of 
Malvern, gave his life for the State he loved so well. 

His wife and three children yet live to rejoice in the heritage of 
honor left them by the husband and father. 



jg^o] THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 189 

EDWIN W. EASTON, 

Private, "Mobile Cadets," 3i Alabama Infantry. 

No part of the State of Alabama gave more of its best blood to 
the cause of the Confederacy than did the city of Mobile. Hardly 
a family escaped the loss of a member, and many with mutilated 
limbs are to be seen every day, even now, moving painfully 
through the streets, with cane or crutch. Happy the mothers 
who were permitted to embrace even the shattered living remains 
of their dear ones ! 

One of the military organizations in which this city was rep- 
resented, was the Third Alabama Infantry, composed of the fol- 
I lowing companies : 

I The Mobile Cadets, Captain R. M. Sands ; The Mobile Rifles, 
' Captain Z. T. Woodruff; the Washington Light Infantry, Captain 
Archibald Gracie ; the Gulf City Guards, Captain Hartwell, 
I with two companies from Montgomery and one each from 
! Wetumpka, Union Springs, Tuskeegee, and Lowndesboro. The 
field officers were : — Jones M. Withers, Colonel ; J. T. Lomax, 
* Lieutenant-Colonel; Cullen A. Battle, Major. 

To the Cadets, Company A, belonged Edwin William, son 
I of William C. and Mary Stoddart Easton, of Mobile, in which 
I city he was born February 4, 18-40. He was educated at the 
Mobile Academy, first under the charge of Rev. Norman Pinney, 
, formerly Professor in Yale College, and afterwards under that of 
J Prof. James M. Saunders, LL.D., now Rector of the "Univer- 
i sity School," New Orleans. Edw^in was from his earliest years 
' thoughtful and studious. It seems that he actually taught him- 
self to read. Passing from the primary schools to the Academy, 
he pursued all the studies usually preparatory to a high collegiate 
course. This done, he entered the University for the session of 
1859-60. 

This was a disturbed period of our country's history, and 
unpropitious for close study. The "John Brown Raid" greatly 
excited the public mind, especially in Virginia and the South ; yet 
it is believed that Edwin took such a position at College as, con- 
sidering an unfortunate attack of illness under which he suffered 
for several weeks, would have insured him future honors. On 



190 THE UIS'IYEESITY MKAIORIAL. [j,jiy^ 

leaving the University in the summer of 1860, to spend the vaca- 
tion at lioine, tlie country became so alarmingly unsettled that it 
was thought best he should not return to that school. He pur- 
sued his studies at home for some time, and then voluntarily 
entered upon a course of legal reading in his father's office. His 
mind uas critical and analytical : taking little on trust, he sought 
to explore everything thoroughly. In a few months, one who 
frequently examined him can truly say that he gave promise of 
becoming distinguished in the profession. 

But then came the excitement of the elections, political discus- 
sions, kSecossion, and the confusion of the altering state of political 
affiiirs, and all the various incidents and clamors preceding the 
actual "din of arms." He joined the "Cadets," and without 
military ambition — for of that kind he possessed none — he 
simply endeavored as a patriot to do a soldier's duty. This he 
performed fully, bravely. 

On the 23d of April, 1861, the " Cadets" left Mobile for Mont- 
gomery, where the 3d Alabama was formed and regimental officers 
elected. From Montgomery the regiment was ordered to Norfolk, 
Virginia, where it was stationed for nearly a year at a point 
familiarly known in that city as " The Entrenched Camp." Its 
duties during this time were neither glorious nor hazardous, and 
the men chafed at their constrained inactivity. There was hardly 
an incident — except the memorable victory of Captain Buchanan 
and the iron-clad "Virginia" over the Federal fleet in Hampton 
Roads — to bring home to the young men of the Third the 
glorious perils of war. Many of them, however, were enabled to 
Avitness the destruction of the Cumberland and the Congress, 
among these Edwin Easton, who was fully alive to the interest 
and importance of the occasion. 

A few weeks later, the regiment was unleashed, and took up the 
line of march for Richmond. On its first field. Seven Pines, it 
behaved handsomely, and in the Seven Days' contest with McClel- 
lan, it established a name for courage and gallantry. In the last 
of these great battles, Malvern Hill, Edwin Easton was stricken 
from the ranks by a fragment of a shell. Recovering sufficiently 
to rise after a few moments, he hobbled to his company and 
endeavored to maintain his position ; but his feeble condition and 
the command of his superiors compelled him to retire. 

He was then sent to a hospital in Richmond, Avhence he wrote, 



ISIirJ.] 



THE UjS^IVEKSITY AjEMoEIAL. 191 



on the 3(1 of July, bis last letter to Iiis father. He made liglit of 
the severe contusion he Jiad received, and said lie would soon join 
his company; spoke in the most feeling and affectionate terms of 
some among his friends who had fallen on that fatal First of July, 
and mentioned particularly two of his company comrades, Fred- 
erick Stewart, than whom " the Confederate Army did not boast 
a braver soldier," and Paul Lockwood, Avho was '' brave to des- 
peration." Then he thanked God for his own preservation ! 

„ . . . . On the 4th of July, a ring of the bell at the house of 
Daniel Ratcliffe, Esq., in Richmond, brought to the door a 
servant, who announced to her mistress the young Confederate 
soldier. "When she found that it was Edwin Easton, a kinsman 
of her husband^ whom she had known years before a little boy, 
but now " wearing the gray," and withal hobbling Avith his wound, 
she took him to her heart at once. Her husband soon came in. 
He, too, made the soldier boy doubly welcome. They would not 
permit him to go back to his quarters; sent for his knapsack, and 
furnished him with a room and every comfort incident to a 
"home." Here he was watched carefully, and when, as shortly 
appeared, his health declined and malignant symptoms wei'e indi- 
cated, they obtained the best medical advice. But the advances 
of the terrible disease — Chickahominy fever, superinduced per- 
haps by his enfeebled condition — were insidious and did not 
manifest their fatal tendency until a few days before he died; too 
short a time for his stricken parents to reach him, alive. But 
those parents will not cease to pray God's blessing upon Mr. Rat- 
cliffe and his excellent wife; and they desire to record here tlieir 
grateful remembrance of the unostentatious and unaffected kind- 
ness, the thoughtful care and patient, gentle attention given by 
these friends to their sick and dying child. 

On the 28th of July, 1862, the crisis came, and Edwin Eastox 
was numbered with the dead. His body was, by tlie foretiiought 
and care of Mr. RatclifFe, preserved in a metallic coffin, and his 
parents removed it from Richmond to its final eartldy resting- 
place among the deceased members of his family in Mobile. 

Of young persons, all that we are generally able to say is, that 
they wore youths of promise, and gave hopes of future usefulness. 
More, it is true, has been snid by the biographers of persons cut 
off prematurely, where strong indications of literary or other 
excellence were developed. Perhaps there have not often occurred 



192 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[Jaiy, 



more marked evidences of future excellence in the ordinary pur- 
suits of life, of taste in literature and science, sciuiid judgment, 
steady and devoted purpose of mental and moral improvement, 
than in the case of Edwin Easton. 

With this opinion accords the following testimonial — the only 
one which our space allows — from his old teacher. Prof Saunders, 
now of New Orleans : — " Edwin was confided to my care in the 
year 1856, as Principal of the Mobile Classical Academy, and suc- 
cessor of that laborious teacher, student and litterateur, the Rov. 
Norman Pinney. He continued under my instruction for more 
than three years, when he entered the University of Virginia. 

" It has always been a part of my system to cultivate confiden- 
tial and affectionate relations with such of my jjupils as desired 
and deserved it. I am able, therefore, to speak with precision, not 
merely of the scholastic acquirements, but of the moral and mental 
attributes of this most estimable and intellectual youth. His habits 
were unexceptionable. Sincere, candid, and docile, he had the con- 
fidence of his teachers. Honorable, truthful, and courageous, he 
was beloved and respected by his schoolmates. Virtuous by nature, 
and protected by parental example, he betrayed none of those pre- 
cocious aspirations of vice aud folly which so often ripen into a 
habitude of wrong. 

" His mental capacity was excellent. He was calm and thought- 
ful, thorough and exact in his acquisition of knowledge, and his 
whole course at school was successful. He was a go(jd scholar in 
Greekj Latin, French, and Mathematics. These studies comjjre- 
hend an extended range of intellect. I do not remember that he 
ever made a bad recitation. But his pursuit of knowledge was 
not confined to the accurate repetition of an academic task : though 
very young, he had ex[)lored much in advance of his studies, and 
evinced much of the taste and tact of the scholar. He read the 
great classic epics of Homer and Virgil with a sympathy aud 
ability which elicited my admiration. I remember that he com- 
pared the description of the shield of Achilles with that of xEneas, 
and awarded the palm to Virgil. In this disquisition he mani- 
fested much critical acumen and poetic taste. He expressed an 
admiration of Dr. Channing's Essays, especially of tiiose which 
describe the characters of Milton and Napoleon. 

"These observations and expressions of opinion were made in 
his frequent calls on me in the intervals of school, when the con- 



1SG2.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 19^ 



versatioii would turn on other literary subjects than his studies. 
I regarded him as one of the best and brightest of my pupils. 
Self-dedicated as he was to the cause of right, those who loved 
him must be consoled by his fame for the misfortune of his loss. 
Such were his youthful indications of worth and ability, that 
if spared he would have been one of the most virtuous, the most 
useful, and the most excellent of men." 



JOHX M. EEDWOOD, 

Lieutenaiit, "Mobile Cadets,"' 3d Alabama Infantry. 

It was not a single family only that had good reason during tlie 
war to say, "God bless the j^eople of RicJimond ! " "When the for- 
tunes of the day begirt that beautiful city with a double line of 
friends and foes, and the brave Southerners fell by thousands under 
the flashing fires, the citizens turned their houses into hospitals, 
and their matrons and maidens became ministers of mercy to the 
sick and wounded soldiers. It mattered not that they came with 
strange faces and names ; they were welcomed with deeds of kind- 
ness and offices of charity, the grateful remembrance of which 
they bore with them to their graves, or to their distant homes. 
The writer has not forgotten, will not forget, a household, until 
then almost entirely unknown to him, to whose tender ministry 
and patient watchings he probably owes his life ; and so for many 
does Richmond suggest, along with the thoughts of hard service 
and costly victories, memories of kindnesses that are immortal. 

While Edward Easton found a home in the family of ]\Ir. llat- 
cliflfe, John Marshall Redwood, another of the "Mobile 
Cadets," was not less fortunate. Both of these young men were 
natives of Mobile; they entered the military service at the same 
time, passed through the same experience of war, and, falling in 
the same fight, shared alike in their last hours the comforts of a 
private family. 

John Redwood was the son of Richard Holman and Sabrina 

Caroline Redwood. His father was a native of James City county, 

Virginia; his mother, a South Carolinian by birth, was reared in 

Alabama, where she met and married Mr. Redwood. The date 

13 



194 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. ^j^^jy^ 

of this latter event is February 3, 1827, John, the fifth child of 
this union, was born July 23, 1841. 

At the age of fifteen he was sent to the Military Academy at 
Nashville, Tennessee. After remaining two years at this school, 
he became (in 1858) a student at the University of Virginia, 
where the name, Redwood, was both familiar and in good 
repute — his brother Robert having not long before been gradu- 
ated Bachelor of Arts of that institution. It Avas here that the 
writer formed his acquaintance. The effect of a military educa- 
tion was then visible in his erect carriage and dignified bearing- 
but in his countenance were traces of good humor, while his con- 
versation abounded with jokes and scintillations of wit. In the 
summer following, when books were laid aside and students were 
roaming about, some in quest of health, others in the abandon- 
ment of pleasure, w^e met again in the mountains of Virginia, at 
the celebrated Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs. Here he bore 
himself in the same quiet, gentlemanly manner, his face perhaps a 
shade more mischievous, and his sly, pungent jokes a little more 
frequent than when in the vicinity of grave Professors, Here his 
wit was shot at some of the noted characters that usually abound 
at such places; an ill-fitting Avig or a pretentious widow, a snob or 
a nabob, a Danton or a Scruggs, was sure to provoke his shafts, 
which were not unfrequently feathered with a historical allusion. 
After such a running fire he was apt to lapse into serious conver- 
sation, sometimes discussing most difficult topics with ease and 
intelligence. 

In the autumn of that year (1859), Redwood returned to the 
University, and took, along with some literary tickets, the junior 
course of Law, which he proposed as his profession. This year, as 
in the preceding, he was a member of the Washington Society, in 
whose meetings he 2>articipated regularly. At the close of the 
session he returned to his home, carrying with him, besides several 
distinctions, certificates of jH'oficiency in Anglo-Saxon and in Con- 
stitutional and International Law and Government. 

In Mobile he entered at once the laAV-office of Manning & 
Walker, and there spent nearly a year longer in preparation for 
the bar. Both these gentlemen stood high in the profession, and 
John enjoyed their full confidence and esteem. One of them 
thus writes of him: — "His naturally fine abilities, hourly im- 
proving under his studious habits, gave every promise of profes- 



I,cc2.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 195 

sional distinctiou. For one so young, lie had a rare maturity of 
thought and reflective turn of mind ; and united to his high intel- 
lectual gifts, were the moral qualities that give roundness and 
completeness of character." 

In April, 1861, he set out for the seat of war as a member of 
the "Mobile Cadets," of which company mention has already been 
made. During the long time the 3d Alabama was stationed at 
Norfolk, its members had little to do except to perfect themselves 
in drill. Many of them represented the best families of Mobile; 
some were recognized at once and cordially greeted by their col- 
lege friends ; and so they were readily received, and to an unusual 
degree, into the society of the city. During this period — remem- 
bered still with pleasure in this connection by many of the resi- 
dents of Norfolk — John Redwood became acquainted with a 
young lady of high respectability and of cultivated piety. Ere 
he left the city a mutual attachment had been formed, and the 
offer of marriage made and accepted. Under her influence and 
with her example before him, he became interested in the subject 
of relio-ion. He had always borne a character above renroach, 
but without any pretension to personal piety. For many months 
he was deeply serious, giving to this great question its merited 
consideration ; and as the result, made a confession of faith and 
connected himself with the Episcopal Church. 

In the spring of '62, the 3d Alabama left their comfortable 
quarters, and taking up the line of march, reached Richmond in 
time to engage in the battle of Seven Pines, and the Seven Days' 
conflict around Richmond. At Malvern Hill, Redavood was 
severely wounded in the left arm, yet not so severely as in the 
opinion of the surgeon to render amputation necessary. When 
his father reached him, however, on the 4th of July, it was too 
late, as mortification had already taken place, and he was not suf- 
ficiently strong to bear the knife. During the first, week of his 
illness, he was removed to the residence of Captain G. AY. Allen, 
of Richmond, " whose continued and thoughtful kindness will be 
gratefully remembered by his afilicted parents." There, through 
the heat of summer and until the early autumn, he lingered, 
wasting away under constant suffering, which, it is pleasant to 
know, was borne with the patient resignation of a Christian. 

A short time previous to his death, he was elected to a lieuten- 
ancy in the Cadets, " in acknowledgment of his proficiency in 



196 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. fj^j., 

tactics and his gallantry in action." To please him, his father 
had his officer's uniform made, and hung it just where John could 
see it. Though proud of a promotion for good conduct on the 
field, he often remarked that he would never be able to wear the 
bars; and once added that perhaps it was just as well, since his 
military education made him too strict to hold office over those 
who were of the same station in private life. 

On the morning of the 25th September, his friends gathered 
around his couch to receive the whispered farewell. Among 
them was she who gave him life, and she who, dearer than life to 
him, " is still single for his sake, and beloved by his friends as 
fondly as if she were indeed a sister." At nine o'clock a soft hand 
closed his eyelids, and then they came and composed his limbs for 
the grave. His remains were deposited in the burying-ground at 
Richmond, where they await the signal from Him who said, "J 
am the Resurrection and the Life." 



H. EYERARD MEADE, 

Private, Company E, "Petersburg Riflemen," 12th Virginia Infantry. 

The list of victims of the campaign around Richmond, already 
so long, is not yet complete. The names of the brave men who 
received their death-wounds upon the field of battle have been 
recorded ; but the results of a campaign like that are never given 
by even a correct report of the killed and wounded. * The long 
marches, the privations and exposure incident to the rapid move- 
ment of the army, and the excitement jDroduced by frequent 
engagements, were fruitful of fatal results. Heroic soldiers sank 
under the long-continued pressure ; chivalric spirits, jealous for 
their country's weal, drooped as they went to meet her foes, and 
perished by the way without the inspiration of the battle-hour. 
But they were not less heroes than those who yielded up their 
lives while the shouts of victory were on their lips. 

Hugh Eveeard Meade, the second son of Julia E. and the 
late Hon. R. K. Meade, of Petersburg, Virginia, was born at 



18G2 J 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 197 



Dinwiddie Court House, March 30tli, 1838. His father was for 
many years a member of Congress, and subsequently was United 
States Minister to Brazil. 

In the fall of 1855 he entered Plampden Sidney College, where, 
in June, 1858, a few months after reaching his majority, he 
graduated at the head of his class. During the two years suc- 
ceeding his graduation, he taught school in Brunswick county, as 
principal of " Red Oak Academy." 

With a view to fitting himself for the Bar, he became, in 
October, 1860, a member of the Law Class in the University 
of Virginia, and was thus engaged until the following spring. 
In May, 1861, he laid down his law-books, and leaving the 
University, took up his musket as a member of " The Petersburg 
Riflemen," w^ho "vvere known officially as Company E, 12th 
Virginia Infantry. His record in this command is that of a 
soldier who was scrupulously conscientious in the discharge of 
duty, and among the most fearless on the field of battle. But his 
delicate constitution was unequal to the hardships of military life ; 
and under the prolonged high-pressure service on the lines around 
Richmond, while McClellan w^as investing that city, his system 
gave way. Worn, exhausted, and attacked by an insidious 
disease, he was sent to his home in Petersburg, where, in the midst 
of his friends, he died on the 10th of July, 1862. 

Of EvERARD Meade it may be said that he belonged to that 
school of gentlemen who are distinguished for a chivalric sense of 
honor, and the highest refinement of feeling and manner. Nature 
had given him a clear head, and a liberal education had stored his 
mind with useful information. Possessing the keenest sense of 
the ridiculous, and an inexhaustible fund of wit and humor, he 
Avas eminently fitted for society; and in the ccfnvivial gatherings 
of his fellow-students, or of his comrades in the army, he seemed 
to preside unconsciously, the genius of the hour. 

0£ his religious feelings few knew much; only on the bed of 
suffering — his death-bed — did he give evidence of that faith 
whose teachings, let us hope, had guided hJs life. Conscious that 
the end was near, and that the hour of his departure was at hand, 
he calmly kissed each member of his family, and bade them good- 
bye, with- the parting words to each, "Meet me in heaven." 
Then turning and clasping the hand of his physician, who was 
also his friend and kinsman, he said to him : — " I am dying, 



198 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[July, 



Hugh, Fight Christ's battles as we are now fighting those of onr 
country. Take Hini as your great example, remembering that 
there is no happiness save in a life of virtue." With these beauti- 
ful words trembling on his lips, he closed his eyes, and the brave 
young spirit was gone. 



CHARLES T. SHELTON, 

Private in Anderson's Battery. 

Charles T. Sheltox was born on the 9th of April, 1839, at 
" E,oseneath,"the residence of his father, David R. Shelton, of Louisa 
county, Virginia. After a preparatory course at Hampden Sidney 
College, he entered the University in the fall of 1857. In the 
latter jjart of the following May he was suddenly called home by 
family bereavement, in consequence of which his studies at the 
University were interrupted until the beginning of the next 
session, when he returned and spent the two following years in 
preparation for peaceful and useful employment, receiving 
diplomas in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. In October, 
1860, he took charge of a school in the village of Columbia, on 
the James river. 

While he was thus engaged, Virginia called her sons to her 
defence. On the 18th of May, 1861, he was married, and started 
in a few minutes to the front. In January, 1862, he re-enlisted 
" for the Avar," and was in consequence granted a thirty days' 
furlough, which enabled him to visit his bride, whom he had 
never seen since the hurried ceremony was performed. In rescu- 
ing a drowning youth during this furlough, he contracted a violent 
cold, which, terminating in pneumonia, detained him from the 
service for about a month longer. 

About this time his company — Captain Anderson's Artillery, 
from Botetourt county — was reorganized and put in drill at 
Camp Lee. Thence it Avas transferred to the West, serving first 
under General Kirby Smith, and afterwards under General Pem- 
berton, in the disastrous campaign on the Mississippi river. 

At Port Gibson Mr. Shelton was wounded in the right hand, 
but did not leave his command. ^^The siege of Vicksburg followed, 



TlIK UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 199 

and at the surrender of that place he was so ill with fever that he 
had to be left in the Iiands of the enemy ; his cousin, a mere boy, 
volunteering to remain with him as nurse. 

On the night of the 25th July, this youth fell asleep, and on 
waking, found his cousin in a kneeling posture, but — the spirit 
had fled ! 

Of his last days of sickness and suffering his family and friends 
know but little. The young kinsman mentioned above related to 
his own father the little that is known, and then said : — " Tell 
them what I have told you, and tell them never to ask me ahuut 
it, and never to mention it in my presence. I wish never to repeat 
it, and never, even in thought, to revert to it again." 

Charles Shelton had never made a public profession of 
religion, but in the years of his childhood and youth more than 
ordinary attention was paid to his instruction in religion. And 
letters written during the last few months of his life give most 
comforting evidence that he trusted in the Saviour of sinners and 
was saved. 

His remains rest at Vicksburg, and the spot is jnarked by a 
marble slab, with the name, Charles T. Shelton. 



Dr. PATRICK H. CLARK, 

Captain, Long Island Artillery. 

Patrick Henry Clark, youngest son of William H. and 
Elvira A. Clark, of Banister Lodge, Halifdx county, Virginia, 
and great-grandson of Patrick Henry, was born April 21st, 1837. 
" From childhood a dutiful son, a tender brother and faithful 
friend, he grew in esteem as in years." After careful training at 
home, he was sent for several years to the excellent school of Mr. 
Franklin Minor, in Albemarle county. From Mr. Minor's he 
went in October, 1855, to the University of Virginia, and, in 
accordance with the wish of his father, entered upon a course of 
study preparatory to the profession of Medicine. Among his 
fellow-members of the AVashiugton Society, as indeed among the 
students at large, he enjoyed an enviable degree of ])0])ularity. 
As has since been said of him, " he was indeed a noble, high-souled 



200 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



spirit, as genial, frank, and manly as he was pure, kind, and gen- 
erous;" and for these qualities he is still 'held in aifectionate 
remembrance by those who survive him. 

After leaving the University, Pat. Clark attended lectures in 
the Medical College at Richmond, during which time he resided 
with his grandmother, Mrs. Bruce, At the end of the term in 
1858, he was graduated Doctor of Medicine. His father now 
gave him an ancestral estate, situated in Campbell county, and 
known as " Long Island ; " but it could hardly be said that Dr. 
Claek resided upon it, so much of his time did he spend with 
his friends in Halifax. In 1859 he went abroad to enlarge the 
liberal culture he had already received. In Paris he pursued 
again his professional studies, and then set out for a tour of the 
Continent. But he had gone no farther than Italy, when he heard 
of the secession of Virginia; and, true to his proud Revolutionary 
lineage and his own convictions of duty, he left at once the scenes 
of enchantment amid which even they who lack the enthusiasm of 
youth are tempted to linger, and hastened home to aid in defend- 
ing the land of his birth. 

When he reached Virginia, I]e repaired at once to Campbell, 
and finding that Captain Alexander had already raised a company 
of cavalry with which he was hurrying to take the field, he 
promptly enrolled his name as a private in its ranks, and set about 
his preparation to accompany it. During the brief space allowed 
him for this purpose, Mrs. Clark, moved, perhaps, both by her 
instinctive apprehensions for the personal safety of her son, and 
by a natural and laudable desire to see him fill that station which 
his professional studies had so admirably fitted him for, said to him, 
" Patrick, you have been highly educated ; your medical course 
completed in Paris, where you enjoyed so many advantages. You 
could now serve so well both your country and your fellow-men 
as a surgeon," To the appeal, intelligible and eloquent as it doubt- 
less was to him, he replied at once : — " Dear mother, while I love 
to gratify you in all things, don't ask me to take a surgeon's place. 
I want to go into the ranks and fight as a common soldier." And 
thus did he enter the army and fight the first battle of Manassas, 
in which his gallantry and efficiency were conspicuous. But 
when the victory was won, he applied himself industriously to the 
relief of the wounded. 

Dr. Clark was not long allowed, however, to remain aprivate» 



jj.,;o/, THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 201 

"His excellent character as a soldier speedily won for hi m the 
rank of Orderly Sergeant. In this position his soldierly qualities 
and his capacity for command soon became so conspicuous that he 
Avas urged to raise a company, and procured from the War 
Department authority for that purpose." In a few weeks he suc- 
ceeded in raising an artillery company of over one hundred men, 
who elected him captain by acclamation, and called the command 
after his plantation, " The Long Island Artillery." 

In this new position " he secured alike the respect and the affec- 
tion and the confidence of his officers and men. In the battles 
around Richmond his battery was frequently engaged, and he 
conducted himself with conspicuous gallantry, which elicited the 
complimentary notice of his commanding general upon the battle- 
field, and won for him the highest admiration of his compatriots 
in arms." Through this series of conflicts he passed unscathed by 
shot or steel ; but very soon after he was stricken down with 
violent disease — the consequence of excessive exposure and priva- 
tion. At the first symptoms of fever he was warned and urged 
by his friends to retire from the field ; but his devotion to duty 
would not allow him to do so until he was prostrated and it was 
too late for safety. 

In one of the hospitals, with which the Confederate capital was 
crowded, he receiv^ed every attention — all that medical skill or 
humanity could suggest, was done for his relief. Yet so rapid 
was the progress of his disease, that even his relatives in the city 
knew nothing of it until they were stunned by the news of his 
death. Immediately after that event, which occurred on the 25th 
of July, 1862, his uncle-in-law, Hon. James A. Seddon, wrote to 
Mr. Clark : — " I have been most deeply shocked and pained this 

morning to hear of the death of your gallant son Pateick 

I see him now before me with his beaming, open face, ardent and 
glowing with all kindly and manly emotions; and I mourn indeed 
to think I shall hear no more on earth his cheerful, hearty voice, 
nor meet again the warm grasp of his cordial greeting. We had 
heard with such gratification of his conspicuous gallantry in our 
late glorious battles, and of his happy escape from all wounds. 
Nor had we the least notice of his sickness, to allow us the last 
poor privilege of endeavoring to soothe or minister to him, until 
the tidings of his death came to shock us." 

In his last hours Captain Clark's thoughts dwelt much upon 



202 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[July, 



his family ; especially did he yearn for the presence of his mother. 
"You remind me so much of her/' said he to a noble Virginia 
matron, who watched at his side during his brief illness. " Oh! 
if I could just once more behold the loved ones at home, my dar- 
ling mother, dear fath.er, and dear sisters and brother." It is 
indeed a glowing and grateful tribute to maternal fidelity that the 
son should long to pillow his dying head on the bosom that nursed 
his infancy. 

The fancied or real resemblance of his faithful attendant to iiis 
own mother, led him to talk to her as with filial frankness about 
the concerns of his soul. For the comfort of the bereaved house- 
hold, that lady was thus enabled to speak with confidence concern- 
ing his highest interest. " Not a doubt," wrote she to Mrs. Clark, 
"not a doubt of his acceptance with God rests upon my mind." 

From an obituary notice of Captain Clark, written soon after 
his death, by Prof. E. S. Joynes, now of Washington College, we 
have already had occasion to quote; in concluding that tribute, 
which is a meed, not less of justice than of praise, Prof J. 
says : — " As an officer he was devoted to his men and to the inter- 
ests of the service. As a patriot he surrendered all the luxuries 
of wealth, and offered up his life in the service of his country. 
As a friend he was genial, generous and kind. As a goq and 
brother he was affectionate, devoted and beloved. In every rela- 
tion of life he Avas above reproach ; in death let his memory be 
cherished, as in life he was respected and beloved, by all." 

To conclude this article, nothing could be more appropriate, 
as surely nothing could be more comforting, than the following 
extract from a notice by the venerable Bishop Johns, of the 
Episcopal Church, who knew Captain Claek well : — 

" Other appropriate obituaries have borne truthful testimony to 
the manly virtues, social refinement and accomplished education 
of this patriotic youth, which endeared him to all who knew him, 
and rendered his early death a costly sacrifice in the cause of his 
country, and a deep and enduring affliction to his devoted family 
and friends. 

" It is to record for their solace and support the clear and decided 
assurance of their dying relative and associate tliat this notice is 
penned. ' 

" To the estimable lady who, during his short and severe illness, 
ministered to him with maternal tenderness, and who had expressed 



^yg.>-| THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 203 

to liim her hope of his recovery, he replied — 'I am very ill ; but 
do not think I am alarmed. I am not afraid to meet my God. 
If He spares my life, well. If otherwise, I am jperfedly resigned. 
Ify trust is in Jesus.' 

" la the battles of IManassas and before Richmond, his brave 
heart manifested itself in distinguished deeds of gallant bearing ; 
and in the silence and solemnity of his chamber, when all causes 
of animal excitement were absent, and he was conscious of the 
pressure of the cold hand of death, he was calm, collected, and 
hopeful. Death had no fears to him." He who had nobly laid 
his worldly wealth, and all he hoped for, even life itself, on the 
altar of his country, was himself reposing in the arms of Jesus, 
and could confidently say, ' It is well ' — ' well ' if spared ; 
* well ' if removed ; * well ' for time and eternity. 

"We may thus, amidst the merited wreaths which his admiring 
and grateful survivors shower on his honored grave, discern an 
unearthly and incorruptible bloom bestowed by the invisible hand 
of grace, to refresh with its fragrance those who mourn him, and 
hereafter to bear the precious fruit of eternal life." 



WARNER L. SELDEN, 

Private, Co. B, 7tli Virginia Cavali-y. 

Warner Lewis Seldex, son of Courtnay W. and Robert C. 
Selden, was born at " Sherwood," Gloucester county, Virginia, 
March 18th, 1844. He was descended from the Seldens of Norfolk 
and the Lewises of " Warner Hall," Gloucester, two families that 
date back as far as the Revolution. 

Of rare personal beauty, intelligence, strength of purpose, and 
genuine piety, there is every reason to believe that time only was 
wanting to develop in Lewis Selden a character rich in noble 
qualities. As soon as the war began he was, like all the youth 
of the land, filled with zeal for the cause he deemed sacred, and 
eager to enter the service at once; but being too young for this, 
he Avas obliged to content himself with drilling at the University 
of Virginia, during tlie spring months of that year. At the close 
of the session he returned home and devoted his attention to the 



204 THE UKIVEESITY •MEMORIAL. [August, 

soldiers in the miserable hospitals at Yorktown. Almost daily 
he might be seen, carrying every delicacy he could collect ; and 
later in the season, when his father opened a private hospital at 
his own farm, it was a pleasure to him to bring many an invalid 
to receive the benefits of good food, nursing, and change of air. 

In October, 1861, he returned to the University, and became a 
student of the academic course. Here, however, he remained 
only until the completion of his eighteenth year, which occurred 
the following March. His ardor to enter the army was unabated, 
and after earnest entreaties he gained the consent of his parents, 
who having already given two sons to the service, did not feel that 
the demand for the third was imperative. 

His young cousin, "William Boswell Selden, of Norfolk, had 
just fallen at Roanoke Island, and Waener begged that he might 
avenge his death. He chose a gallant leader — Ashby — and 
joined his command in the Valley, soon to be to him the " Valley 
of Death." His regiment was the 7th Cavalry, his company, that 
commanded by Captain Marshall, of Warren county. 

The sudden change of climate, the unaccustomed hardship and 
exposure, made him an easy prey to typhoid fever, by which he 
was attacked. In a few weeks he was lying prostrate and pining 
in a tent, unable to join in battle with his comrades as he had 
coveted. His home had then fallen into the enemy's lines, and all 
communication with his parents was cut off. No kind friend was 
there to bear him, as he had borne others, to rest and comfort, for 
the war was raging, and Ashby had fallen. At last, when too 
late to be relieved, he was sent, under the care of Rev. Magruder 
Maury, to Harrisonburg. There he was kindly received by Mr. 
and Mrs. Crawford Strayer — as a stranger, from pure benevolence 
and patriotism, for he was too ill at first to give her the necessary 
directions to his friends. 

From this gentle lady, assisted in every way by her husband, he 
received not only the most judicious nursing, but tenderness equal 
to a mother's. Though worn by sickness, his mind failing from 
delirium, the beautiful traits of his character shone out during 
this period, and Mrs. Strayer learned to love for himself one 
whom she had taken into her house from mere sympathy with his 
condition. His accounts of his home and his family interested her, 
and she soon became familiar with the names of all his friends ; 
and so, when in his delirium he called constantly '-'Henry! 



186-2 ] 



THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 205 



Henry ! " she knew that his mind was straying back to the scenes 
of his childhooil, in which that younger brother had been a con- 
stant and beloved companion. 

Oa the 1st day of August, 1862, Lewis Selden died. His 
remains were carried to Richmond and interred. After the war 
they were removed to Norfolk, and laid in the family burying- 
ground. 

While at tlie University he boarded with Mrs. Carr, and dur- 
ing his residence there, her son, who had been one of his tutors at 
"Sherwood," sickened and died. Lewis assisted in nursing him, 
and by his brotherly attentions won the heart of the bereaved 
mother. And when, so shortly afterwards, he followed his teaciier 
to the grave, Mrs. Carr wrote thus to Mrs. Selden : — 

"I was greatly shocked to see the announcement of dear 
Lewis's death in the papers. He had left us but a few months 
before, full of life and spirits. By his sweet and gentlemanly 
manners he had engaged the affections of all the family here. 
There never breathed a purer or more manly spirit than his, and 
his family have the sweet consolation of feeling a certainty that 
he was perfectly prepared for the change." 

Henry Selden, whose name Lewis had repeated so often in his 
last illness, was his junior by just two years. The two brothers 
had scarcely been separated at all until Lewis became a soldier. 
Alike in character and purpose as they were, one in heart and 
soul, they could not be sundered long. Just two years later, 
Henry entered the service of his country, and shortly after re- 
ceived a mortal wound at Milford, Page county. Knowing that 
he could not live, he desired to be carried to Mrs. Strayer's; and 
on arriving there told that lady he came to beg her help, as he 
wished to die where Lewis had died. She received him as she 
had done his brother ; and in a few hours he resigned his breath, 
with the bright faith of a child of God — having just reached his 
brother's age, eighteen years. 

Together they sleep in the same grave at Norfolk, with this 
simple inscription : 

"In death not divided." 



206 THE UNIVEPvSITY MEMOKIAL. [August, 



HUGH MORTIMER NELSON, M. A., 

Major and A. D. C. to General Ewell. 

When a community or State, surrounded by competitors with 
equal advantages, produces for a continued series of years a supe- 
rior class of public men in both civil and military callings, the 
fair presumption must be, that the body of the people, of which 
these are the chosen representatives, are of superior mould. 

For her distinctive characteristics, which have shed such lustre 
on tlie Old Commonwealth, Virginia is indebted to every class of 
her citizens, but to none more than that from which the subject of 
this memoir sprung. 

Major Hugh Moetimer Nelson was born in Hanover county, 
Virginia, October 20th, 1811. His father, Mr. Francis Nelson, 
was the son of that staunch old hero and patriot, General Thomas 
Nelson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. 
General Nelson was the son of Hon. Wm. Nelson, President of 
the King's Council in the Colony of Virginia, who was a descend- 
ant of Thomas Nelson, a gentleman who came over from the 
northern part of England, among the earliest settlers of Virginia. 
Major Nelson's mother was a Miss Page, of Gloucester county, 
Virginia, a descendant of Governor Mann Page. He was the 
youngest of a large family, all of whom reached years of 
maturity. 

The rudiments of his education were taught him at h.ome, by 
an elder brother. At a very early age he gave evidence of that 
thirst for knowledge which ever after characterized him. At 
fourteen he was sent to a classical school four miles from home, 
which distance he walked morning and evening. Here he acquired 
an enviable reputation for diligence in his studies. Often in 
after-life he spoke of the notes of the wood-robin, which cheered 
liim as he trudged to school. He retained through life a pure 
love of nature ; and the memory of these sweet notes, which 
solaced his solitary walk, ever after awoke pleasant associations in 
his mind. 

At the age of sixteen he was placed at the Academy at Winches- 
ter, then in charge of Mr. John Bruce, a native of Scotland, and 
an eminent instructor of youth. He remained in this school two 



1I;'G2.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 207 



years as a pupil, and one as a teacher, retaining through the whole 
time the coniidence of Mr. Bruce and of all who knew hira. 

It is well known that his grandfather. General jSTelson, sacrificed 
an immense fortune in defence of those principles for the main- 
tenance of which he had pledged his life, his all. His family was 
impoverished, and anything like a just compensation was refused 
them by a Congress which, even then, was more amenable to sin- 
ister influences than to the claims of justice. Mr. Nelson was 
consequently unable to gratify his desire to prosecute, at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, the studies thus auspiciously begun. But a 
^'dative of his father, appreciating his wish, kindly assisted him, 
and in 1830 he matriculated at that institution. The friend who 
aided him was always cherished with the warmest feelings of 
gratitude. 

At that time there were no schools preparatory to the Univer- 
sity, and on reaching it, Mr. Nelson found that he had almost 
to begin anew. Consequently his first two years there were spent 
in most laborious study. Sometimes, when worn down by work, 
he would get a fellow student to pump water on his head, to 
arouse him for renewed efforts. 

At the close of his third year he was graduated Master of 
Arts, together with James L. Cabell, and Socrates Maupin, now 
Professors in the University. Previous to this year, this degree 
had been conferred but once. 

Mr. Nelson retained through life, the highest regard and ven- 
eration for his Alma Mater ; and with a keen appreciation of the 
difficulties he had labored under, he determined to establish a 
school for the special preparation of young men for the course of 
study adopted there. He located in Charles City county, where 
he was enabled by his success to offer a happy home to his wid- 
owed mother and two sisters. Although always an honorable occu- 
pation, teaching had not then taken so high a stand as a profession, 
as it has since done in Virginia. Mr. Nelson Avas the first full 
graduate of the University who taught in Virginia, and thus was 
a ])ioneer in a business that has opened a career of honor and 
usefulness to so many of our best young men. 

While teaching in Charles City, he suffered a loss which none 
ever knows but once — his mother sickened and died. This event 
overwhelmed hira with grief; for, while his character was marked 
by the sternest qualities of a man, he ceased not to cultivate the 
tenderest sentiments of the heart. 



208 THE UKIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[August, 



In the midst of the duties of a successful and popular teacher, 
jMr. Nelson not only found time for the pleasures of social life, 
which he both enjoyed and ornamented, but applied himself in- 
dustriously to the study of law, to which as a profession the bent 
of his talents and inclination directed him. During a vacation, 
while spending the summer at one of the Virginia Springs, he 
met Miss Maria Adelaide Holker, the accomplished daughter of 
the late Hon. John Holker, Consul-General of France to the 
Colonies during the Revolutionary War. A mutual attachment 
springing up between them, they were married in the following 
November, and took up their residence in Baltimore, where, after 
some preliminary study, Mr. Nelson was admitted to the bar. 
Pecuniary considerations, however, induced him to leave Balti- 
more before he had made much progress in the practice of his 
profession; but he felt, ever afterwards, that this step was the 
great mistake of his life. 

Returning to Virginia, he purchased Long Branch, the estate 
of his relative, the late Philip Nelson, Esq., in Clarke county. 
Here the talents which would have distinguished him at the bar, 
were turned into a different channel, and he became an enterpris- 
ing, progressive farmer. In this capacity, too, he was eminently 
successful, and made for liimself a State reputation, rarely return- 
ing from the agricultural fairs, so frequent before the war, with- 
out almost an undue proportion of premiums. His hospitable 
board was enriched by handsome goblets and silver services 
obtained in these civic contests. Amid these pursuits, he still 
retained his love for literature, and his leisure hours were spent 
with the best authors, ancient and modern. 

As yet, no reference has been made to Mr. Nelson's religious 
character. Early in life he attached himself to the Episcopal 
Church, and he was a habitual and liberal supporter of all reli- 
gious and benevolent enterprises. The resolution jjassed by the 
Vestry of Christ Church, Millwood, of which he was a member, 
gives a faithful delineation of his character, so far as it could be 
done in a few words : — " Ever cheerful, ever trustful, seeking but 

to do his whole duty as a high-toned Christian gentleman 

That in his death they feel that each one of them has lost a warm 
and valued friend ; the community a public-spirited citizen ; the 
country a devoted patriot , and the Church one of its most useful 
members." This was far from being a merely complimentary 



jSgoj . THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 209 

form; it was the simple expression of the convictions of those 
who passed it. In this connection, it is clue to truth to add, that 
while he was devoted to the Church of which he was a member, 
he was no bigoted sectarian. 

Mr. Nelson had not long enjoyed his country home, before he 
met with a serious accident, which impaired his health, and caused 
him the most acute suffering. By the advice of his physicians he 
was induced to consult some of the most eminent surgeons of 
Europe; and thus the accident was not an unmitigated evil, as it 
was the cause of his travelling; abroad for several months. The 
object he sought was accomplished in Paris, where he spent the 
greater portion of his time, occupying his large leisure in those 
pursuits which are especially attractive to an American scholar. 

Having always had a fondness for the study of military tactics, 
he had here, probably, the best opportunity the world then afforded, 
of observing the movements of large bodies of soldiery, of all 
arms. His specialty was cavalry, and he was enabled here to 
make valuable observations in that branch, in Mhich he himself 
was yet to do actual service. He was in Paris in the revolu- 
tionary year 1848, and saw the massing of immense bodies of 
troops in the Champ de liars. He was in the midst of the fight- 
ing in the barricades, and witnessed the horrors of civil war, 
which he afterwards labored so faithfully to avert from his own 
beloved country. 

Returning home from Europe with improved, though not 
restored health, he felt anxious that Virginia should have an 
efficient military organization. He accordingly raised, and for 
many years kept in fine drill, the company afterwards noted in 
the war as the " Clarke Cavalry," of the 6th Virginia Regiment. 
This seemed to some of his friends a useless precaution, but future 
events proved his wisdom. 

When the ominous cloud, which had been so long gathering, 
covered the political skies, and the question of Secession was forced 
upon Virginia, Mr. Nelson remained firm for the Union. When 
a Convention was called to decide the question, his people cast 
about them f )r the best man to represent them in council. He 
seemed to come naturally before the Union peoj)le of Clarke 
county, and was elected to the Convention by a large majority. 
Mr. Nelson took his seat in that body, with the conviction that 
the path of duty, as of safety, for Virginia, lay in adhering to the 
14 



210 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. . [August, 

Union and demanding our rights. At the same time he M'as 
determined to follow the fortunes of his State. It required all 
his firmness to pursue the course he had marked out for himself, 
as most of his personal friends in Richmond, having adopted a 
policy opposed to his, urged him, by every means, to abandon the 
views which they thought dishonoring to Virginia. He wrote 
thus, February 20th, 1861 : — " The Convention has been engaged 
for the last two days in hearing the Commissions from Mississippi, 
South Carolina, and Georgia. Mr. John S. Preston, of South 
Carolina, made a very brilliant speech yesterday. It did not 
move me the least from my propriety. The action of the Con- 
vention will be very conservative, as I think it is a very conserva- 
tive body. The Secessionists are exercising all sorts of outside 
pressure, but, I hope, with no avail. At least I can speak for 
myself." 

March 11th, he wrote: — "I hope we shall now soon bring our 
labors to a close. God grant they may be effectual to preserve the 
Union, and, at the same time, to preserve our rights. The times 
demand of us all the utmost prudence, discretion, calmness, for- 
bearance; and yet the Secessionists would have us go out in hot 
haste, which, in my opinion, would result in anarchy and ruin." 

As he saw the madness of the Government in refusing any con- 
cessions to the just demands of the South, his letters became more 
hopeless of peace. He wrote, April 13th : — " We hear of wars and 
rumors of wars. AVhat will be the issue, God only knows. I 
fear the Confederate States have been very precipitate. We are 
in the hands of the Almighty, and I doubt not He will order all 
things well." 

April 10th, 1861 : — " I am writing to-day with a sad and heavy 
heart. I never felt so sad since the day my mother died. This 
day an ordinance of Secession will be passed, which will sever 
Virginia from the Union ; and then, indeed, the Union will be 
gone forever. As long as Virginia remained in, there was hope 
of reconstruction ; but the wretched Lincoln, by his outrageous 
and usurping course, has swept every inch of ground which we 
Union men were standing on, from under us, and we must be car- 
ried headlong over the precipice of revolution. When I think 
of the past, and look forward to the future, it almost unnerves 
me." 

A gentleman of Mr. Nelson's cultivation, large acquaintance, 



I860.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 211 

and character, must of necessity have taken a prominent stand in 
any body of which he was a member. In the Convention he 
offered a series of resolutions, which were referred to the Com- 
mittee on Federal Relations, the substance of which w^as embodied 
in the majority report of that committee. The resolutions were 
supported in an able and characteristic speech, delivered before the 
Convention in committee of the whole. 

Not as presenting the arguments of a party, but as characteristic 
of a true patriot and accomplished gentleman, one or two extracts 
from this speech will not appear misplaced. The report says : — 

Mr. Nelson continued — " This ultimatum I would present in 
the calm and dignified language of settled purpose. If it be 
heeded, the tide of fanaticism rolled back, peace and harmony re- 
stored, this great Republic, returning to its ancient usages, acting 
within the scope of its constitutional limitations, will go on to 
illustrate the grand theory of popular sovereignty, and to perpet- 
uate the great blessings of liberty, prosperity, and happiness to us 
and our posterity. If, unfortunately, it should be unheeded, then, 
conscious of having done all that forbearance can do, wisdom 
suggest, or patriotism demand, to save from destruction this glo- 
rious Union, we will — nay, of necessity then must — withdraw 
from a confederacy no longer compatible with our interest and 
our honor. 

"But, Mr. President, the question is asked on the other side, 
'In case the Gulf States will not come back into the confederacy, 
will you go with the South or with the North?' Do gentlemen 
mean to forget or ignore the Border Slave States ? Sir, I will 
not ignore them. They are a mighty empire, embracing within 
themselves all the elements of greatness and power. They 
contain at this time a population double that of the Gulf States; 
and I for one, Mr. Chairman, am prepared to say, if I can 
get such guarantees as will be satisfactory to Virginia and to the 
Border Slave States, much as I deplore a separation from them, 
though they will have my strongest sympathies and my best 
wishes for their prosperity, I will not consent, so far as my humble 
influence will effect it, to take Virginia out of the Union ; and in 
this my action, I shall be guided solely by what I think will be 
for the interest of Virginia. For, Sir, of all the stars upon the 
National flag, the star of Virginia is/ the bright, particular star ' 
tiiat fills my vision. To her I owe my first allegiance; to her 1 



212 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. [August, 

am bound by the strongest ties. Sir, if any man can liave a birth- 
right in Virginia, I have one. All my ancestors, for nearly two 
hundred years, have lived and died in Virginia. Sir, I cannot 
say, with the eloquent gentleman from Kanawha, that I never 
left Virginia. Stern necessity once compelled me to leave her 
border. I felt an exile from my native land. I thought of her 
by day, and dreamed of her by night. When laid upon the bed 
of sickness, in the delirium of fever, I was crying out to be taken 
back to Old Virginia. I never breathed freely until I got back 
within her bounds. Yes, Sir, the memories of the dead enter into 
my love for Virginia; the potent associations of childhood bind 
me to her; all the joys and all the griefs of my manhood have 
daguerreotyped her on my heart ; and I can say, as Mary of 
England said of Calais — ' when I am dead, take out my heart and 
you will find Virginia engraved upon it. May she be my home 
through life, and when I am dead, may my ashes repose within 
her soil.'" 

The more argumentative portion of Mr. Kelson's remarks 
were forcible and telling. But when any subject has been 
thoroughly discussed, the facts and deductions from them are 
common property. It is in the outburst of feeling and sentiment 
that we find more that is peculiarly characteristic of individuals. 
One moi'e extract will be necessary to show how clearly he dis- 
cerned the ruin and disaster that would fall, not only on the whole 
South, but peculiarly on those whom he represented : — 

"I come," he said, "I come from the sparkling Shenandoah^ 
' daughter of the stars,' as its name imports. I live within a day's 
march of the Thermopylae of Virginia. That Valley, now beauti- 
ful and peaceful ' as the Vale of Tempe, may be a very Bochim — 
a place of weeping.' These growing fields, 'where lowing herds 
wind slowly o'er the lea,' may become fields of blood. Can you 
blame me, then, if I wish to try all peaceful means, consistent 
with Virginia's honor, of obtaining our rights before I try the 
last resort? I promise you, when the contest does come, if come 
it must, the people whom I have the honor to represent on this 
floor, will meet it like men. I hope, in that event, I shall not 
be wanting to ray duty. If I know myself, I will try and not 
disgrace that commission which I hold, which Avas presented to 
me by the gentleman from Princess Anne, when Governor of the 
State. 



Ig02.3 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 213 

" When Virginia spreads her broad banner to tlie breeze, and 
gives me my orders, no Mohammedan ever followed the sacred 
banner of the Prophet with greater zeal than I will follow her 
standard. I hope, if need be, ' I will follow it to the death.' " 

But the eloquence of Demosthenes must have failed when it 
Avas announced that Mr. Lincoln had issued a proclamation call- 
ing for men to coerce the seceded States. What had been to that 
moment a strongly conservative and Union body, was driven to 
secession ; and Mr. Nelson found himself, with a vast majority 
of the State, compelled by the logic of events to accept it as the 
only honorable course, and he, without hesitation, affixed his 
signature to the Ordinance of Secession, as his ancestor had to 
the Declaration of Independence. 

And now, although at an age when he might, without fear of 
injurious reflection, have relinquished the hardships of the field 
to younger men, he immediately sought service. He was not 
then in command of the cavalry company organized by himself 
some years previously ; but he had many of the qualities that 
should have given him high rank as a cavalry officer. Fearless, 
active, intelligent and devoted, he was one of the best riders in a 
State famous for her horsemen. But it is well known that at the 
beginning of the war, the prejudices of the powers at Richmond 
ran so exclusively in favor of West Point men, and the eleves of 
the Virginia Military Institute, that, with the exception of a few- 
prominent politicians, it was exceedingly difficult for others to 
obtain regimental appointments. 

When the war actually broke out, Mr. Nelson was in Pich- 
mond attending the Convention, which adjourned in April to meet 
again in June. During his absence from home the volunteer 
companies of Clarke county had been assembled at Harper's Ferry 
and mustered into service; so that very few available men re- 
mained. Immediately upon his return from the June session of 
the Convention, he set about raising a company of cavalry. He 
rode constantly, and by dint of extraoixlinary exertion — offering 
as an inducement to volunteer, to some a horse, to others a bounty — 
at length collected forty men, and with these he reported for duty 
to General Johnston, who employed him in watching the move- 
ments of Patterson. In this capacity he rendered most efficient 
service by his intelligence and activity, in deluding that officer, 
and thus preventing his junction with McDowell's army at 



214 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [August, 

Manassas — a junction that would probably Lave given a very dif- 
ferent conclusion to a day so brilliant in Confederate annals. He 
was thus employed until Johnston moved to Manassas, when the 
men whom he had with such difficulty collected, not having 
been regularly mustered into service, disbanded. 

A vacancy having occurred in the captaincy of his old com- 
pany, the Clarke Cavalry, he was elected to fill it, on the day of 
the first battle of Manassas. Immediately on hearing of this 
election, notwithstanding his very delicate health, he set oif to 
assume the command, but of necessity too late to take part in that 
glorious day, which was to him a keen disappointment. On 
taking charge of his company. Captain I^elson was constantly 
employed on picket duty by Colonel J. E. B. Stuart, to whose 
regiment his command was attached. 

A letter from General Stuart, now before the writer, evinces 
the high esteem in which he held Captain Nelson as an officer. 
And so, in truth, did all under whom he served at any time dur- 
ing the war, unite in testifying to his high qualities as a cavalry 
commander, as well as in expressing their regret that the army 
should have lost his services by the silly blunder of the reor- 
ganization in 1862 — a blunder which almost ensured the dis- 
placement of good officers and strict disciplinarians. 

From the time when Virginia first girded herself for the great 
struggle, Captain Nelson looked forward for a glorious future 
for the South, never doubting of the independence for which he 
fought. His letters from the field were uniformly cheerful. 
Instead of complaining of the hardships which his delicate frame 
felt so severely, he wrote to cheer and animate those who were 
inclined to despond. But that he did suffer bitterly may be 
gathered from his expressions in his last moments, when delirium 
had relaxed his self-control. " How I have suffered ! " he would 
exclaim ; "how I have suffered ! scorched by the sun by day, and 
by night frozen with the cold ! " 

Captain Nelson remained with Colonel Stuart until the latter 
was promoted, when he procured a transfer of his company to the 
6th Virginia Cavalry, then under Colonel Field, Avho, also, after- 
wards won his General's wreath. During the winter of '61— 62 he 
was kept constantly on outpost duly, with the exception of a 
short visit to his fauiily. In the meantime he had greatly im- 
proved the discipline of his command, which distinguished itself 
through the war for efficiency and gallantry. 



1862,] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 215 

At the reorganization of the army in the spring of 1862, as 
before intimated, he was not re-elected. He was, however, soon 
called into service again by a letter from General Ewell, request- 
ing him to act as his aide-de-camp. Tiiis position — with the 
rank of Major of Cavalry — although inadequate to his abilities 
as a soldier, he at once accepted, and as promptly reported him- 
self for duty. 

On the 23d of May, General Ewell captured Front Eoyal and 
pressed on to Winchester ; that night Major Nelson paid a flying 
visit to his dear ones at home — the last ever pernjitted him. On 
the following morning he rode over to the village of Millwood, 
to learn something of the movements of the army. When in 
sight of the village he saw a body of men advancing, and, taking 
them for Confederate cavalry, he rode up and accosted them, 
inquiring the number of their regiment. Finding from their 
answer that he was surrounded by Yankees, he wheeled his 
horse and gave him the rein. He was fired on and pursued for 
miles, but his gallant " Victor" bore hira safely into our lines. 
That night he joined General Ewell and participated in that 
celebrated Valley Campaign, which at once elevated General 
Jackson into the rank of great captains. 

Space does not permit us to follow Major Nelsox through the 
dangers, excitements and glories of this campaign, commencing 
at Front Koyal and Winchester, closing amid the thunders of 
Malvern Hill. The history of these works does not belong to 
a paper like this; but the ciiivalrous bearing of General Ewell's 
aide, through all this series of brilliant victories, is attested by 
the following letter, written the day after his death : — 

"August 7th, 1862. 
" AV. D. Meriwether, Esq., 

"Dear Sir: — I could not have believed it possible to be so 
grieved at the death of one, a short time since a stranger, as I am 
at the afflicting blow that has removed Major Hugh M. Nel- 
son. His devotion to the cause of his country, his bravery, 
sense, in siiort his eminent qualities as a soldier and gentleman, 
have impressed deeply myself, as well as all those brought in 
contact with him. 

" These are mere facts, and the more important as in this war, 
more than anywhere else, the people stand on their own merit. 



216 



THE UjS^IVERSITY MEMORIAL. [August, 



" His life, under Providence, was sacrificed, I fear, to his too 
great anxiety to take the field while still under the influence of 
disease. Major Nelsox was at the affair of Strasburg in June, 
the battle of Cross Keys, Port Republic, and the terrible conflicts 
below Richmond. It is useless to say that on those days he 
showed the bravery and devotion to which his descent entitle 
him; all who knew him need not be informed of this, but I take 
pleasure in offering a feeble tribute to modesty, worth and patriot- 
ism. He received a contusion at Cold Harbor, June 27tli, but, 
except this, escaped uninjured the exposure of the other battles. 

" Be so kind as to communicate to his family my grief as well 
for them as for the loss to the country. I make no idle compli- 
ments to his memory; my expressions seem to me feeble in con- 
veying my sense of either the official or social loss. 

"Should my duties permit, I will attend the funeral. My 
staff will be present. Yours, 

R. S. EWELL." 

That letter anticipates the event. His frame, enfeebled by bad 
health, could not endure the rude shocks he bore with such uncom- 
plaining fortitude. The record, common as it was a few years 
ago, is touching : First, there is a surgeon's certificate that leave 
of absence was necessary, and that he could not return to duty 
for ten days. The " ten days" ran into eternity, and he was " off 
duty " forever ! 

Early in the month of July he went to the house of his cousin, 
Mr. Keating Nelson, in Albemarle county. A violent attack 
of typhoid fever developed itself. All that medical skill and kind 
friends could do, was done ; but in vain. He knew for some time 
before the event, thatdeath was approaching ; but instead of gloom, 
tlie knowledge brought joy and gladness. He felt keenly for those 
Avho were bound close to his heart; but he knew in whom he 
trusted, and his faith never wavered for a moment. 

A faithful friend who was with him wrote thus, August 8th, 
1862, immediately after his death: — "Truly, I felt it a privilege 
to listen to him, to hear his testimony to the glorious salvation of 
which he was assured. 'Saved by grace,' he repeated again and 
ajain. 'I am safe, safe in the Lord Jesus.' All his views were 
bright: no cloud obscured his hope of Heaven." 

Another, who joined him soon after, wrote of his wonderful 
serenity and his triumphant trust in his Saviour. " I am in sweet 



1^-62.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 217 



hands — safe in the arms of the Lord Jesus," were liis words. A 
little after he exclaimed, " Glorious brightness ! " One who sat 
close by, asked, " Where does it come from ? " " Straight from my 
Saviour's countenance," he replied immediately. 

His message to his wife and children was " to stand still and 
wait on the Lord for salvation." 

On the 6th day of August, 1862, his brave spirit winged its 
way to the bosom of its God. And we add, reverently and trust- 
fully, " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end 
be like his." 



THOMAS PEESTON McDOWELL, 

Private, 2d Rockbridge Artillery. 

"T!ie best history of a nation," some great writer has re- 
marked, "is written in the biography of her sons." 

If this be true of all nations — and who can doubt it ? — then, pre- 
eminently, is it true of the State and people of Virginia in the ex- 
citing crisis of her existence out of which, " Avith garments rolled 
in blood," and face marred with weeping, sorrowing, suffering, 
stricken in every sacred right, she has but just emerged. No 
mother ever boasted a goodlier or truer race. No sons ever served 
a noble mother with loftier enthusiasm, more unselfish affection, 
unflagging zeal, unswerving fidelity, unfaltering courage^ or more 
unquestioning obedience. Feeling her honor impeached, her 
rights infringed, and her borders threatened with invasion, her 
call to arms, like the blast of Fitz James's bugle, in an instant, 
as by magic, peopled the smiling valleys and quiet mountain-tops 
with men bristling in armor, ready and eager for the fray. And 
further and further away, beyond the bounds of her own domain, 
her sons, sheltered by other banners than her's caught the echoes 
of tliat battle-cry, and hastened to the rescue. They had no 
impulse other than the love they bore to her and to her rights. 
She had no bribes with which to lure them to her side; for empty 
of jewels and gold, she bore in one hand but a simple chaplot of 
leaves to grace the honored brow of a living son, and in the other 
only an immortelle to drop upon the grave of the no less honored 
and cherished one who had laid down his life for her sake. 



218 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. [August, 

Of those sons dwelling beyond her limits, there was not one 
who yielded a more prompt response to her call, than the subject 
of this brief memoir. 

Thomas Preston McDowell, youngest son of Governor 
James McDowell, was born at the residence of his maternal 
grandfather, General Francis Preston, in Abingdon, Virginia, 
July 5th, 1836. 

Losing in childhood the tender care of a most excellent mother, 
he was at a still more critical period of life — that in which a boy 
is transferred from the high school to the college — again deprived 
of parental oversight and anxious watchfulness, and the firm 
hand of paternal control and guidance by the death of his father. 
Thenceforward his education was confided to his uncle and guar- 
dian. Colonel Thomas L. Preston, Avho, himself a much attached 
alumnus of the University of Virginia, sent his young ward, after 
a short time at Washington College, to his own cherished Alma 
Mater . 

Unambitious of a professional career, on attaining his majority, 
young McDowell married and established his home in the 
neighborhood of Abingdon. 

In a few years, however, beguiled by the accounts that reached 
him of the rich lands and bright prospects of farmers in Texas, 
he left his quiet home in Western Virginia, and after a brief sojourn 
at Seguin (the county town), settled on a ranche a few miles dis- 
tant from it, on the banks of the beautiful Gaudaloupe river in 
Gaudaloupe county, Texas. "Roughing it in the bush," he here 
gathered his herds and built a log dwelling for his little family. 
By his genial temper, his aifectionate disposition, his kind con- 
sideration of the feelings of those about him ; by his honorable 
character and attractive social qualities, he soon made friends in 
his strange home — friends who still cherish his memory with 
kindest regard. 

But he had small space here for the development of his powers, 
either as a citizen or farmer, for the rumble of hostilities on our 
Atlantic frontier already sounded across the continent. A Seces- 
sionist in principle, he was standing on Texan ground, cap in 
hand, waiting for the action of Virginia, and ready, when the 
word came, to go, that he might defend his native State upon her 
own soil. Pending the short delay of his departure, he joined Ben 
McCulioh's Texan Rangers, and proceeded to San Antonio against 



i8j2.1 ' THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 219 

Major-General Twiggs, of the United States Army. It M-as a 
bloodless victory, the old General yielding his sword withont a 
blow, because he would not wield it against his native South. 
Early in April, 1862, he reached Lexington, Virginia, his old 
home; and immediately entering the service as a private in the 
2d Rockbridge Battery, under his brother-in-law, (Reverend) 
Captain John Miller, reported himself for duty in camp on Alle- 
ghany Mountain, Pocahontas county. General Edward Johnson 
commanding. 

He was from the beginning in active service, being present at 
the engagement at McDowell, which was the opening of that 
splendid Valley campaign, under Stonewall Jackson, which has 
rendered that General and his comrades forever illustrious. 

Young INIcDowell's militaiy career was short, only three 
months; but in its rapidly shifting scenes, its long forced 
marches and hard fights, he won from his Captain (one who had 
succeeded his brother-in-law) an expression of commendation for 
his " distinguished gallantry," and bore to the grave the scar of 
a wound received at Port Republic. 

During a temporary withdrawal of his command from active 
service, he died in camp at Gordons ville, Virginia, the 11th of 
August, 1862. 

The power that distinguished Tom McDowell, of attaching 
others to him, was due to an eminently cordial address, to his 
manners, refined and courteous to a very high degree, and to a 
generosity of spirit, soon discov-ered and warmly apjireciated by 
those who became his neighbors. 

These traits, with fine powers of speech, and a bold free pen in 
what he attempted of written rhetoric, would have made him a 
conspicuous ornament to the University, if he had devoted him- 
self to a political career. 



AVILLIAM B. MEREDITH, M.A., 

1st Lieutenant, aud Adjutant, Bichardson^s BattaUon of ArtiHery. 

William Beenaed Meeedith was the son of lion. John 
A. and Sarah Ann Meredith, of Richmond, and was born at Port 



220 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. " [August, 

Royal, Caroliue county, Va., October 8tli, 1839, at the residence 
of his grandmother, Mrs. Sarah Bernard. On both sides he v.ns 
connected with some of the oldest and best families of Virginia, 
and his father is one of the purest and most honored of Vir- 
ginia judges. 

In youth he was distinguished for almost womanly gentleness, 
joined to an unusual fondness for athletic sports. When he entered 
Richmond College as a student, he was very young, and seemed 
younger than he really was.'' His cleai", bright eye, his hair slightly 
curling in the neck, his erect carriage and dignified bearing, and 
withal his pleasant genial face, made him a boy of mark. In a 
class composed of students older than himself, he was among the 
best. He received his diploma as Bachelor of Arts in June, 1856, 
not having yet completed his seventeenth year. Although so 
young, such had been the diligence with which he had improved 
his excellent opportunities, that there were few men who had a 
wider or better acquaintance with general literature. In the fall 
of 1855, the class met one morning in the lecture-room of the 
Professor of Mathematics, before the hour for lecture. " We were 
talking of the books we had read during the vacation just closed. 
One remarked that he had spent much time in reading poetry, 
and that for the first time he had just read 'Rokeby.' Then 
turning to another member of the class — the best scholar in it — 
he asked him if he had ever read ' Rokeby.' A little confused, he 
hesitated a moment, and then said, ' I think I have read some of 
Mr. Rokeby's poems.' " The writer can never forget the confused 
look of young Meredith, or the surprise with which he said, 

"Well! H , don't you know any better than that?" He 

himself was Avell up in the mysteries and beauties of Walter 
Scott. From Richmond College he went to the University of 
Virginia, where he took the Master's degree at the commence- 
ment of 1859. He was the first Master of Arts of the Uni- 
versity whose father had taken that degree there before him. 

After leaving the University he became a student of law in his 
father's office, and under his father's direction. One who was 
much with him at that time says : — '' I was not only struck by 
the extent of his reading, but by the facility with which he could 
use the information he had laid up; and still more, with the readi- 
ness with which he advanced in his legal studies. I was likewise 
struck with the logical trait of mind he displayed in the discus- 



lies.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 221 

sions I frequently provoked -with him. His reasoning faculty 
Avas the leading faculty of his mind, and was wonderfully devel- 
oped for one of his :ige. If it had pleased God to spare him, and 
he liad pursued the study of the law, he would have made a great 
lawyer; and his thorough education would have enabled him to 
adorn the profession with literary and scholastic embellishments 
of a verv high order." Tliis estimate of his abilities is not too 
high. His rare powers of intellect fully justified high anticipa- 
tions of a brilliant and distinguished career. 

Bernard Meredith was very much opposed to the war. He 
thought it could be avoided without dishonor, and that it should 
be avoided. But when the war came, he did not hesitate to seek 
a position in which he might render some service to his native 
State. His friends thought he could not endure the hardships of 
the camp, and proposed to secure for him some civil employment. 
But supposing the army to be the place of duty, he joined an 
artillery company raised at Ashland, Hanover county. Of this 
company Pichegr i Woolfolk was chosen Captain, and young 
Meredith First Lieutenant. He entered the service in July, 
1861, and was with his company at Manassas during the winter 
of 1861-62 ; he moved with the army to Yorktown in the spring, 
and fell back with it to Richmond. In the spring of 1862 he 
was made Adjutant of Major Charles Richardson's battalion of 
Artillery, and remained in service until he was stricken with the 
disease of which he died. In August, 1862, he went home on 
sick leave, no more to return to the army; and on the 22d of that 
month passed away from earth. His disease was typhoid fever. 

In the fall of 1860, I think it was, I met him in the dusk of 
evening coming out of his father's house on Grace street, in Rich- 
mond, and we walked up the street together. -He was full of 
hope for the future. His mind so deeply in sympathy with books, 
was likewise in sympathy with nature. We were "stepping west- 
ward," and we watched a huge dark cloud as it boiled up from 
beneath the horizon and floated on in space. Just before us the 
evening star was shining in quiet, tranquil beauty. The cloud 
approached and the star trembled for a muimiit upon its dark 
verge, and was then engulfed. It was a beautiful and suggestive 
scene, and did not fail to touch our hearts. Alas! that it should 
have been typical of his own bright, hopeful life, so soon overcast 
by the dark cloud of death. It was the last time I saw him, 



222 THE UKIVEKSITY MEMOKIAL. [August, 

except once for a few minutes, in his gray uniform as an officer 
of artillery. His high cultivation, liis quitek, clear perceptions, 
his geuial nature, his great abilities, bespoke a high place in the 
annals of Virginia and the country ; but — he died. 



WILLIAM S. H. BAYLOR,* 

Colonel, 5th Virginia Infantry, and Acting Brigadier-General 
"Stonewfill Brigade." 

William Smith Hanger Baylor was born in Augusta 
county, Virginia, on the 7th day of April, 1831. He fell at the 
head of the " Stonewall Brigade," bearing its battle-worn banner 
in his own Jiands, and leading in the final charge which crowned 
with victory that unrelenting three days' bloody struggle on the 
fields of Manassas, on Saturday evening, August 30th, 1862. 

His mother's maiden name was Eveline Evans Hanger. His 
father was Jacob Baylor, an old magistrate and successful farmer 
of Augusta county. An only son, generous, ardent, and affection- 
ate, with a most pleasing person and cordial address, he was the 
idol of fond parents and the favorite of hosts of friends. His 
early youth, as a bright and cloudless morning, passed pleasantly 
away amid the familiar scenes of his childhood's home. His 
school-boy days were spent in the academy of the accomplished 
and lamented Lyttleton Waddell, in Staunton. In his seventeenth 
year he became a student of Washington College, and ever after- 
wards was remarked among his associates for the zeal and devotion 
he manifested and felt for the welfare of his Alma Mater. He 
was a leading member of the Graham Society, zealous in its 
interests and eloquent in its debates, and was chosen the anniver- 
sary orator at the session of 1849-50. He graduated with credit 
at the College commencement in June, 1850. He entered the 
University of Virginia the succeeding session as a student of Law. 
In 1851 he returned to the precincts of Washington College, 
around which ever clustered so many of his most cherished asso- 
ciations, and continued the study of Law under the Hon. John 
W. Brockenbrough. At the University again in 1852-53 he 

*This sketch appeared first in "The Collegian," of Lexington, Va. Some minor 
changes, however, were made by Mr. C. when he offered it to " The Memorial." 



J8C2.J THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL, 223 

completed the Law course, and delivered the " final " oration by 
election of the Jefferson Society. In November, 1853, he was 
admitted to the practice of his profession in his native county, and 
in 1857 he was elected Commonwealth's Attorney for the town of 
Staunton, and continued in that office through successive elections 
as long as he lived, discharging its duties to the fullest satisfaction 
of the Court and the communityo 

He Avas elected Captain of the " West Augusta Guards," a 
spirited volunteer company of Staunton, and devoted himself 
with such ardor to its interests, that soon, in the perfection of its 
equipments and efficiency of its drill, it was unsurpassed by any 
company in Virginia. At the first signal of trouble in the " John 
Brown raid," it marched to Harper's Ferry ; but its youthful Cap- 
tain — then on his bridal tour, having been married in October to 
Miss Hawes Johnson, of King William county — was at the time 
prostrated with typhoid fever in the city of New York, and so 
greatly did he chafe to be with it, and where he thought his duty 
called, that often in the delirium of fever he imagined himself in 
command of his company, and not all the endearments of a 
devoted bride could divert his thoughts from the engrossing theme. 

The volunteer companies of Augusta were organized together 
as the " 5th Regiment of Virginia Volunteers," and in the spring 
of 1861, Captain Baylor was elected its colonel. Daring the 
war this regiment — modified by substituting two infantry com- 
panies from Winchester in place of the artillery and cavalry com- 
panies, which were transferred to their appropriate organizations — 
became famous as one of the leading regiments of the immortal 
"Stonewall Brigade." 

On that historic day of the adoption of the ordinance of Seces- 
sion by Virginia, the 17th of April, 1861, with the authority of 
only a telegram from Governor Letcher, with the notice of only two 
hours' time, the " West Augusta Guards" and the "Staunton Artil- 
lery " started on a special train for Harper's Ferry. Couriers 
were sent with orders, starting as promptly the other companies 
of the regiment to follow. And on tlie night of the 18th of 
April, together with the companies from the University and Char- 
lottesville, the Warren Countv Rifles, and the 2d Virginia reo-i- 
mcnt, and the famous " Bhick Horse Cavalry," led by the peer- 
less Asliby, all under command of General Kenton Harper, of 
Augusta, they took hostile possession of Harper's Ferry, with its 



224 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. [August, 

large armament and valuable stores and military maeliinery, so 
indispensable at that juncture to arm and equip the troops of the 
South. This handful of volunteers held this vital point — within 
less than four hours' travel of the Federal metropolis — until all 
its invaluable stores and machinery were removed to a place of 
security. 

In the substitution of the volunteer for the militia organiza- 
tion, and the razeeing of officers accordingly under orders of Vir- 
ginia, Major General Harper was appointed as Colonel of the 5th 
regiment, Brigadier-General W. H. Harman as Lieutenant- 
Colonel, and Colonel Baylor as Major; and all the forces at Har- 
per's Ferry were put under command of Colonel Jackson — after- 
wards the world-renowned " Stonewall" Jackson. 

On the 2d of July, in the skirmish which cliecked tlie foi-mid- 
able advance of Patterson at Falling Waters, was shed the first 
blood on the since famous arena of the Valley of Virginia. The 
skirmish line was commanded by the gallant and lamented Ken- 
ton Harper, and Baylor led the left of the line. The brilliancy 
of the alFciir elicited the most generous applause throua;hout the 
South, and gave a prestige and edat to the gallantry of the Valley 
Volunteers that inspired and incited them afterwards in many a 
fierce and bloody fray. 

And on that 21st of July, 1861, on Manassas' memorable plains, 
where the impulsive valor of tlie Southern soldiers won such 
signal renown, the command in which the subject of our sketch 
was ever so cons})icuous for spirit and ardor won its name for his- 
tory. It was in the immediate presence of Colonel Harper, of the 
5th — himself the soul of chivalry (and who often recited the 
incident to the M'riter) — that the lamented Bee, while engaged in 
rallying his retreating troops, exclaimed, "See these Virginians, 
standing like a stone wall!" — thus affixing for immortality the 
prenomen of "Stonewall Jackson," and identifying forever his 
undying name with the since historic fame of that battle-scarred 
brigade, — 

" The old brigade be loved so well, 

The mouutaiu men who bound him 
With bays of their own winning, ere 
A tardier fame had crowned him." 

On the reorganization under the act of the Confederate Con- 
gress, on the 19th April, 1862, Major Baylor was unanimously 



1862.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 225 

elected Colonel again of the 5th Regiment, and remained in its 
command through its subsequent eventful history to his fall. 

At the defeat of Banks at Winchester, May, 1862, Colonel 
Baylor, leading the advance, had his horse killed under him at 
the Court House. In the seven days' battles around Richmond 
he was distinguished bv his characteristic enthusiasm, and was 
officially commended by the commander of his brigade. 

Shortly after the battle of Cedar Run, 9th of August, 1862, 
where the brave General Winder fell. Colonel Baylor was 
assigned to the command of the Stonewall Brigade, and was 
recommended by General Stonewall Jackson for a Brigadier- 
General's wreath. 

Under his command, once more amid the giant struggles upon 
the already famous arena of Manassos, the old brigade ever 
steadily maintained its well-won laurels. Its division comman- 
der. General Taliaferro, says of it in his official report of the 
battle of 2Sth of August: — "The gallantry and heroism displayed 
by our troops is beyond all praise. The 1st Brigade was more 
exposed than any other, and more than sustained the reputation 
which under the leadership of the Major-General commanding, on 
the same field over twelve months ago, it achieved, and which has 
distinguished its veteran troops in many of the hardest fought 
battles of the war. 

" Colonel Baylor, 5th Virginia, who commanded it, was 
worthy of his heroic command: no more exalted recognition of 
his worth and services can be uttered, and no higher tribute can 
be paid him, than to declare that he was worthy of the command 
of the Stonewall Brigade in the action of the 28th ultimo." 

After the bloody fighting on the 29th, on that night, while the 
brigade was resting on its arms, Colonel Baylor sent for his 
beloved comrade, the brave and lamented Hugh A. White, Cap- 
tain of the Liberty Hall Volunteers, and invited him to hold a 
prayer-meeting at the headquarters of the brigade on the field ; 
and there amid the mingled dead and dying of both armies, on 
tliat field of fearful carnage, these two young heroes united in 
humble prayer to the God of Battles. The next day it was Cap- 
tain White who caught the colors from Baylor'h dying grasp, 
and in a few brief moments himself fell draped in its gory folds — 
thus " not divided in death." 

It was during the terrific throes of the last hours of that fearful 
15 



226 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOIMAJ.. [Anguet. 

contest, on the evening of the SOtli of August, when the faltering 
lines of the Federal forces Avere writhing in one desperate struggle 
to save from utter defeat, when the roar of artillery and the peal 
of musketry blended in one mighty diapason to death, the Stone- 
wall Brigade advanced upon the final and fearful charge ; in that 
storm of shot and shell the riddled battle-flags of its war-worn 
regiments dropped one after another from the stricken hands of its 
bearers, Bayloii caught up from the field the standard of the 33d, 
and while waving forward the colors and cheering onward the 
charge, fell in death. 

•' Over the volley's din 
Loud be it rung — 
'■Follow one ! — Follow me! ' 
Soldier, oh ! could there be 
Paeai! or dirge for thee 
Loftier sung ? " 

His body was tenderly borne from that field of his fame, and 
brought back by sorrowing comrades — but in honor — to the 
home of his boyhood. And under the shadows of the oaks in the 
old churchyard at Hebron, amid the graves of his kindred, he 
sleeps his last sleep ; and now by his side, in the space left sacred 
for her — only too soon to fill — lies his heart-broken mother, ever 
dearer to him than life itself. His grave is marked by a marble 
obelisk, simply inscribed : — 

Colonel WM. S. H. BAYLOR, 

Born April 7th, 1831; 

Fell while leading the Stonewall Brigade in the second battle of Manassas, 

August 30th, 1862. 

Beloved in life by all with icJiom he lived. 
Honored in death by all for tchom he died. 



THOMAS G. COLEMAN, Jr. 

Junior 2d Lieutenant and Acting Captain. Company K. 3d Virginia Infantry 

Thomas Gordon Coleman, Jr., son of the late Thomas Gor- 
don Coleman, Sr., of Halifax county, Virginia, was born June 
29th, 1833. In the autumn of 1853 — a few months after attaining 
his twentieth year — he matriculated as a student at the Univer- 



isr.o.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 227 

sity of Virginia, and pursued his studies in that institution with 
creditable success during the sessions of 1853-54, '54-55, and 
'55-56. On the 25th of the following November he was married 
to Isabella, daughter of Hon. Alexander Rives. From this date 
until the eventful period of which this work especially treats, there 
was notiiing in his quiet, retired life to interest the public. 

On the 26th of April, 1861, he enlisted as a private in the 
"Halifax Light Infantry," Company Iv, 3d Virginia regiment. 
His command was stationed near Richmond and at Ashland until 
the 18th of ]May, when it was ordered to the defence of the Pen- 
insula. At Yorktown the troops were compelled to do hard 
manual labor in throwing up fortifications, and Tom Coleman^ 
although totally unused to the axe and spade, performed both 
patiently and cheerfully the service of a private soldier. 

On the 10th of June the battle of Bethel was fought — an 
action which at this distance seems little more than a skirmish. 
AYlien it is remembered, however, that this was the first essay of 
a raw, citizen soldiery against odds (nearly five to one), probably 
as great as the SouthiCrners had to contend v/ith at any subsequent 
time, its importance will not need to be magnified. The conduct 
of Magruder's little force on this field was a prophecy of the fierce 
spirit and the stubborn resistance with which the Federals would 
be met at every point, and its moral influence as such was felt 
throughout tiio country. Company K, commanded by Captain 
Gramuiar, here held the post of honor. ''I have given you," 
said General Magruder to Captain G., after disposing his troops, 
" I have given you what I consider the most dangerous and the 
most important position. You must defend it to the last breath." 
This was his right flank, wduch the enemy attacked only with 
field-pieces ; " but that made our position all the harder to stand 
to," said a member of the company writing from the field, "as we 
. had to stand still and receive the hottest kind of a fire without 
being able to return it." This statement every tried soldier knows 
to be strictly true; yet like vetera^is, the "Halifax Light Infantry" 
held the post until ordered by the commanding General to reen- 
force those companies of the regiment which had been driven 
back under Colonel Stuart. When the enemy became aware of 
the approaching support they retired, and the battle closed. 

A few days after the battle of Bethel, the 3d Virginia was 
ordered to Williamsburg, and remained there until late in the 



228. THE UIv'IVERSITY MEMORIAL. [Aui^nst, 

fall. About the 1st of December Company Iv wont into winter- 
quarters at Smithfiekl, but in the spring it returned to the Penin- 
sula, and took part in the frequent skirmishing about Yorktown. 
It was during their stay at Smithfield that Mr. Coleman was 
advanced by his comrades to the office of Junior Second Lieu- 
tenant. 

In the month of April, 1862, Lieutenant Coleman's health 
gave way under the exposure in the low country, the effects cf 
which were no doubt aggravated by excessive fatigue. At the 
house of a friend in Richmond, he was tenderly nursed through a 
dangerous attack of typhoid fever, from which, as soon as he was suf- 
ficiently recovered, he received a furlough to go home and recruit. 
He had scarcely recovered his strength when the battle of Seven 
Pines occurred; but being confident that the campaign had opened 
in earnest, he set out for the field against the advice of his friends, 
who thought him unfit for active service. 

The 3d Virginia was then in Pryor's Brigade, Longstreet's 
Division, and in all that series of seven days' battles around Rich- 
mond, in which Longstreet tore his laurels from the enemy, 
Lieutenant Coleman bore an honorable part. His regiment par- 
ticipated in all the charges of the 27th instant, except the last, from 
which it was withheld by the commanding General on account 
of exhaustion. On that day Captain West, of the " Halifax Light 
Infantry," was mortally wounded; and Pryor's Brigade, which 
Avent into its first battle fifteen hundred andforty-eigld strong, lost 
during the seven days eight hundred and fifty-seven hilled and 
v)ounded ! 

From Richmond, after the defeat of McClellan, the route of 
Longstreet soon led to Gordonsville, and thence at once to the 
support of Jackson, on the Rapidan. The history of Pope's con- 
tinued retreat from that jilace, begun on the 18th of August, and 
culminating in the three days' battle of Second Manassas, is 
familiar to the reader. On the morning of the 29th, Longstreet 
forced his ^vay through Thorougljfare Gap, and hurried to the aid 
of Jackson, who, having already fought the battle of the 28th, 
was now confronting the entire Federal army. 

At that time Lieutenant Coleman was the only officer with 
Company K, and therefore had command of it. He passed safely 
through the ordeal of the 29th, in which his gallantry helj^ed to 
purchase victory. On Saturday, August 30th, when at the head 



1S02.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 229 



of his command, the whole brigade temporarily lost organization 
under a galling fire. Captain Coleman, in attempting to collect 
his men, leaped upon a stump, and waving his sword, cheered 
loudly to them to rally around him. He thus became only too 
sure a mark for the enemy's guns ; and while exhibiting a coolness 
and daring which his comrades still delight to tell of, he fell, 
pierced by a ball, and expiring without a word, left his name 

" Gracing the scroll that tells of this war's loss." 



WILLIAM GOODWYN RIDLEY, 

Private, Co. G, (Jth Va. Infantry. 

Colonel Thomas Ridley was a distinguished soldier in the Rev- 
olutionary war. His great-grandson, the subject of this sketch, 
served with no less credit, though in a humbler sphere, and in 
defence of the same principles in the Second American Revolution, 
which, because it was not successful, is now called the " The 
Rebellion." 

William Goodwyn Ridley, oldest child of Francis T. and 
Elizabeth N. Ridley, was born July 1st, 1842, in Southampton 
county, Virginia. As a child he was noted for his great neatness 
of person, and his manner, as he grew older, was unusuallv 
refined. At the age of fourteen, having been previously carefully 
trained, he was sent to " Brookland School " in Albemarle county, 
as a pupil of William Dinwiddle, M. A. At the end of the third 
session he had passed through the classes of* this school ; but 
Mr. Dinwiddi-, who, having discovered in him the requisite 
, ability of mind, was anxious he should take the IMaster's Degree 
at the University, persuaded him to return to Brookland another 
year, in order to make his success at College the more easy and 
certain. In October, 1860, he entered the University of Virginia, 
v.itii the intention of remaining there until his education was 
completed. 

Soon after the first acts of war he became, at the earnest so- 
li, iliition of many personal friends, a member of Company F, a 
volunteer organization previously raised in Norfolk, and then sta- 



230 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[August, 



tionecl on Crauey Island, under command of Captain Harry Wil- 
liamson. Here he had many comforts not usual to the life of a 
soldier, and the friends of the company ftted them continually. 
But still, with ardor of patriotism which chai'acterized so many 
Southern youths, he sighed for a more active life. He was then 
a beardless boy, of rather small stature, but with a good constitution. 
Under this rudimentary experience of " playing soldier,'^ as it 
was afterwards called, his frame expanded and he became more 
robust. 

At the reorganization in 1862, he was offered a lieutenantcy 
in another company, but he preferred to remain with his friends 
in Company F. Upon the evacuation of Norfolk, this company, 
with others, was marched to Suffolk, and thence to Petersburg. 
Here first it was placed in the regiment to which it belonged, and 
was afterwards known as Company G, 6th Virginia Infantry, 
Mahone's Brigade. 

The first action in which William Ridley took part was at 
Drury's Bluff, his company being among those detailed to attack 
the gunboats at that place. He wrote to his father, afterwards, 
that in this his first trial he was calm and composed. Malvern 
Hill furnished his next experience ; a friend, then on a visit to 
the brigade, described his braveiy, immediately before entering 
this battle, as creditable in the highest degree to himself and his 
lineage. It was the tioentietk anniversary of his hirthdap, and he 
wrote home that in the midst of the desperate charge the thought 
flashed across his mind how unlike was this to all the previous 
celebrations of that day. 

After the battles around Richmond, when many were filling 
their places with substitutes, he was offered one ; he peremptorily 
refused to accept the offer: "his bleeding and injured country 
required his services, and he was unwilling to give her less.'* 

Mahone's Brigade was then stationed at Falling Creek until the 
middle of August, when Anderson's Division followed Longstreet's 
to reinforce Jackson and drive Pope from the Rappahannock. 
This brigade was not brought into action in the series of battles 
that culminated in the great struggle of Second Manassas, August 
30th, 1862, until the afternoon of that day. It was then that 
William Ridley fell. His officers and comrades complimented 
his bravery on the field, but darkness intervening, no one saw him 
close his earthly career. On the morning of the 31st, he was 



j^(.o-| THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 231 

found dead "on the front line of the action." Thus perished 
this noble youth, far away from his home, his last eartiily conscious- 
ness the shouts of his victorious comrades, who presently made 
his grave beneath the bloody sod. 

On the same day his gallant brigade-commander, not more 
courageous in battle than cousiderate for the feelings of those 
whom the battle bereaved, wrote the following letter to the dead 
soldier's father : 

" Near Gainesville, Fauquier County, Va., | 

" August ^Ut, 1862. j 

" F. T. Ridley, Esq., Jerusalem, Va., 

'' My Dear Sir : — I do not know that any one of his com- 
rades will have an opportunity, so soon, of conveying to you the 
painful intelligence that your son fell upon the battle-field, a 
sacrifice to the cause of his country, in the great fight of yester- 
day. I have seen no one yet to give me any circumstances attend- 
ing his death. He was reported to me among those for whom I 
inquired especially, as having been found upon the field, dead — 
and, to his honor, on the front line of the action where our brigade 
was engaged. 

" I gave directions that he should be carefully interred, with a 
view to future removal. 

" I was" myself wounded early in the action, but (miraculously) 
not seriously. We have had a very hard-fought battle, one of the 
most determined, perhaps, of the war. The enemy was, however, 
completely routed, and he is now fleeing before our advancing 
forces. 

" My Dear Sir, permit me to extend to you and to your house- 
hold the warmest sympathies of a friend in your* bereavement. 

"You have made a noble and generous contribution in the 
sacrifice of a son to the defence of our rights and liberties; and 
while there is no consideration which can replace or comi)ensMte 
the loss, and especially in a mother's affection, it will be consoling 
to know that the spirit which has gone fell nobly with his face to 
the foe. Your friend, 

William Mahone." 



2o2 THE TJNIYEKSITY MEMUKIAL. 



[Aug lit 



JAMES J. PALMER, 

Private, Company K, Jenkins's Regiment, Palmetto Sharpshooters. 

James Jerman Px\lmer was born in St. Stevens' Parish, 
Charleston District, on the 23d May, 1840, and fell on the plains 
of Manassas on the 30th of August, 1862. He inherited and 
received from his parents. Dr. John S. Palmer and Esther Sim- 
mons Palmer, all the advantages that family, wealth, intelligence, 
and moral training oould contribute to a useful and successful 
career in life. These privileges he did not abuse, but used them 
to make himself an educated gentleman and a useful citizen. After 
several years of domestic training and suitable instruction from 
private tutors, he was transferred from the parental roof and placed 
under the instruction of J. W. Hudson, in the Mt. Zion Academy 
at Winnsboro'. Here he was prepared for College, and in 1857 
was admitted to the Sophomore Class of Wofford College. 
Though deficient in some of his studies, his previous training and 
diligence in study soon overcame these disadvantages, and placed 
liim amono; the first in his class. He graduated in 1860 with the 
first grade of scholarship in a class of a high order of intellect, 
and thought by some to be the best that ever left that institution. 

After leaving College he went to the Virginia University for 
the purpose of pi-eparing himself for the practice of Medicine. 
He was recalled home when South Carolina seceded, and attended 
a course of lectures in the Medical College of Charleston. At the 
close of the winter lectures he paid a visit to his pai'ents, and 
while there the booming of the distant guns announced that the 
bombardment of Fort Sumpter had begun. His native State had 
tlirown herself in the breach of a dismembered Union, and he 
could no longer resist the promptings of his patriotic heart. 
Hastening to the scene of action, he arrived in time to assist thi.' 
Palmetto Guard in extinguishing the flames of the captured 
fortress. 

At the suggestion of the venerable Edmund Ruffin, who was 
an honorary member of the Palmetto Guai'd, volunteers for Vir- 
ginia were called for, and our lamented young friend was among 
the first to step forward and offer his services. He served in Ker- 
shaw's 2d South Carolina regiment, until April 1862, when, upon 



jg,;.2-| THE L'is"ivEi;f<rrY memorial. 233 

the reorganization of the different regiments, his old mess of the Pal- 
metto Guard having dispersed, he Mas led by his strong attachment 
for Thomas Duncan, his classmate and bosom friend at Wofford 
College, to join Company K, Captain Evans, of the Palmetto 
Sharpshooters, under Colonel Jenkins. He was in all the marches, 
skirmishes and battles through which Kershaw's regiment passed, 
and fought his first great battle on the plains of Manassas, July 
21st, 1861. The privations, fatigues and sufferings wliich our 
army endured in that memorable campaign he bore without a 
murmur, and sustained himself with unflinching energy and heroic 
fortitude in that masterly retreat from the Potomac to Richmond. 

AVith the Palmetto Sharpshooters he was associated wath a large 
number of his college friends, and with them shared the privations' 
and dangers of that gallant corps. At tlie battle of Williamsburg 
he fought bravely and endured great hardship as a good soldier. 
Wasted by disease, and exposed to heavy rains, without food or 
shelter, he declared that for the first time he had to abandon his 
knapsack. His feeble health would have justified him in retiring to 
a hospital or in asking a furlough, but with indomitable zeal in his 
country's cause, and with almost matchless fortitude he passed on 
with his regiment, and we next find him in the bloody battle of 
the Seven Pines. Here he fought all day, until darkness ari^ested 
the progress of Jenkins's Brigade, which had advanced beyond the 
enemy's last entrenchments. His sabre-bayonet was broken by a 
ball which passed through his overcoat and coat, leaving a slight 
bruise on his side and back. So great was his modesty he refused 
to have his name reported among the list of wounded. 

In the m.emorable battles before Richmond, he displayed the 
same courage and fortitude which had distinguished his previous 
career. It was in these battles that so many of his comrades fell, 
and none more lamented than his bosom friend, Thomas C. Dun- 
can. On the last afternoon of the fight, about 4 o'clock, when 
every other officer had been either killed or wounded, the command 
devolved upon Lieutenant Duncan. While gallantly leading 
his company to the charge, he fell mortally wounded upon the 
field. James J. Palmer hastened to his friend in the midst 
of flying shot and shell, caught hirii in his arms, and receiving 
from his lips hasty messages of love to parents and friends at home, 
closed his eyes in death ; and pinning a card to his bosom with a 
refpiest that his body might be decently -buried and marked, has- 



234 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. [August. 

tcned on to pursue the flying foe and avenge the yet uncurdled blood 
of his shiughtered friend. /Returning to the field, he had tlie body 
carefully placed on a litter and sent back to Richmond to the care 
of his brother, the Rev. James A. Duncan. 

In one of these battles he had had his rifle struck out of his 
hand by a fragment of shell, his cartridge-box torn off, and a severe 
bruise inflicted on his hip which prostrated him to the ground; 
but he merely stated the fact drvly in a postscript to a letter 
addressed to his parents. Although urged by his comrades, he 
persistently refused to be reported among the wounded, as he felt 
able to continue the fight, and in a few weeks he appears for a 
second time on the bloody plains of Manassas. 

Little did he think how soon he was to close his career upon the 
same memorable field where he had fought his first great battle. 
His company had been assigned a dangerous and important posi- 
tion upon the field, and while standing in a group of his College 
friends, a shell exploded in their midst, and at once hurried into 
eternity this gallant young man, with his noble companions, 
Theodotus L. Capers and Whiteford Smith. Thus perished the 
last of that mess, who, from congeniality of feeling, had associated 
together in camp, and for intelligence, courage, fortitude, and moral 
Avorth, were not to be surpassed by any association of young men 
in the Array of Northern Virginia. 

As a son he was obedient, respectful, and affectionate. His 
father writes: — "He was all a parent could desire of a son. He 
never caused us a single moment's anxiety as regards his deport- 
ment; he was always a dutiful and affectionate brother." As a 
student he applied himself with diligence, was seldom or never 
absent from the recitation room, and always listened with respect- 
ful attention to every lecture or explanation given by his instruc- 
tors. The universal testimony of the Faculty is that he was 
prompt and punctual in the performance of every duty, obedient 
to college-laws, and commendable for his gentlemanly deportment. 
The habits thus formed were carried into camp, and laid tlie 
foundation of his character as a true patriot and brave soldier. 
His willingness and promptness to perform any duty assigned 
him elicited from his Colonel, afterwards General Jenkins, the 
remark, "Sir, that young man is a noble fellow; he is always the 
right man in the right place." His talents qualified him to take 
a high position in the army, yet he sought not office nor fame; 



18G2.] 



THE u:>;ivEssiTY memorial. 235 



least of all did he desire the eplienieral distinction of a desperado. 
His motives were higher and purer; his country was invaded, a 
ruthless and cruel foe threatened to desolate his home, and he felt 
it to be his duty to defend tliat country and that home. He per- 
formed therefore, with cheerfulness, every service assigned him, 
endured hardship and sufferings without a murmur, and shrank 
from no danger where duty called him. In a letter to one of his 
sisters he wrote : — 

"I go down to join the army under the full conviction that it 
is my duty, and that not only my honor, but that of all my rela- 
tions and connections will be impaired if I keep aloof any longer. 
I go now with the intention of serving my State to the utmost of 
my abilities, and entrust my life to the keeping of God. He gave 
and he can take away Avhensoever it pleases him. I will not 
murmur, but it will be hard to be cut off in the prime of life." 

To a mind well balanced he added the refinements of a culti- 
vated taste and cheerful disposition. He was, therefore, a beauti- 
ful writer and pleasant correspondent. His extreme modesty and 
repugnance to display caused him at times to appear difSdent, but 
he Avas interesting in conversation and loved to mingle with his 
friends. He may have been select in the choice of his companions, 
but he was kind and polite to all, and no feature of his character 
was more prominent than his uniform gentlemanly deportment. 
It Avas not that artificial mannerism which, like a holiday garment, 
may be put on or off as occasion demands, but it was the habit of 
his life, it was the effusion of a kind heart flowing through every 
channel of social intercourse and mellowing every element of his 
nature. 

It is not reasonable to expect of one whose mind and heart were 
so constituted and whose life was so consistent with the great prin- 
ciples of Christianity, that he should base his character solely upon 
the dogmas of a worldly philosophy, or that he should postpone 
tlio consideration of eternal salvation to a period of time when 
the feeble service of a fragment of his life would be but a poor 
return to Hhn who had crowned his years with loving-kindness, 
and offered a life of eternal happiness beyond the grave. Hence, 
we frequently find him in his correspondence recognizing his 
dependence on God, returning thanks for His merciful protection, 
submitting without a murmur to His Mill, and expressing his 
conviction of the importance of making early preparation for 
death. In his last letter to his mother, he says : — 



236 THE TJNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. [August, 

"Men claim to have strong and brave hearts, but many a man's 
heart has been bitterly wrung since the commencement of this 
cruel war. And I have heard men Avho never flinched in battle, 
declare, since these sanguinary conflicts, that they hope never to 
be engaged in another. It does seem miraculous how any of us 
escaj)ed at all unhurt from such a shower of shells, grape-shot and 
minie balls. AVe lost some of the best men in our company killed, 
and many others have been disabled for life. 

" Truly I have great cause for gratitude to God for his merciful 
protection of me through so many dangers, while others have 
been cut down in youth around me. If I know my own heart 1 
am grateful, and since I have seen those so near and dear to me 
fall in the bloom of youth, I have felt the necessity of preparing 
against that day when preparation will be impossible; for there is 
no longer a to-morrow. Two of ray messmates have fallen, but 
they were Christians, and I hope they have only been removed 
from a world of trouble to a world of eternal joy." 

We, too, hope that you have joined that mess above, and that it 
may be your blessed ^^rivilege to welcome to that " world of eter- 
nal joy" those beloved ones on earth who now mourn the loss of 
that " dutiful son and aifectionate brother." 



ELLIOTT M. HEALY, 

Captain, Company C, 55tli Virginia Infantry. 

Elliott Muse Healy was born on the 8th day of Jan- 
uary, 1840, in the county of Middlesex, State of Virginia. He 
fell on the historic plains of Manassas on the 30th day of August, 
1862. He was the youngest son of the late Walter Healy, who, 
for several years, represented his county in the State Legislature, 
and illustrated a long and useful life by the spotless character of 
a Christian gentleman ; and whose very name in that county is 
still the synonym of honor and truth. His mother was the 
daus'hter of Colonel Elliott Muse, who was also a member of the 
House of Delegates, from the county of Middlesex, and was a 
gentleman of rare accomplishments. The old citizens of Mid- 
dlesex still speak with rapture of the elegant and generous hospi- 



l^fio.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 237 

talities of " Buckingham," tJie old family seat, and of the winning 
manners and fascinating conversation of its handsome and grace- 
ful proprietor. 

The grandmother of Captain Healy was Betty Tayloe Corbin, 
a daughter of John Corbin, of Laneville, a name well known in 
A'irginia. 

Elliott Healy's early childhood gave unusual promise. He 
was a boy to attract the nfytice of all who came in contact wiih 
him. His manly beauty, his graceful form and bearing, his frank 
and open face, his amiable and generous disposition, combined to 
make him the pride and pet of his family and neighborhood. 
As he grew into manhood, he was marked as one of the most 
promising young men in the State, and all who knew him predicted 
for him a brilliant career. His talents, naturally of the highest 
order, were assiduously cultivated by a thorough classical and pro- 
fessional education. ■ He was a graduate of Columbian College, 
D. C, and had just completed his legal studies at the University 
of Virginia the session before the late civil war broke out. 

In the spring of 1861 he was admitted to the bar, and M'as about 
to commence the practice of his profession as the law-partner of a 
gentleman who was engaged in an extensive practice. Nature 
had endowed young Healy Avith talents which peculiarly fitted him 
for the profession he had chosen. AVith a mind of great native 
vigor, stored with the treasures of a scientific and classical educa- 
tion, lie had devoted himself to the study of his noble profession 
with the enthusiastic ardor of a votary. With indomitable energy 
and a laudable ambition to excel, united with natural fluency of 
speech, graceful manners, and handsome person, he promised soon 
to reap the highest rewards and to attain to the highest honors of 
his profession. The wa-iter of this sketch has frequently heard a 
late Circuit Judge say that young Healy was one of the best 
speakers of his age he ever heard, and he predicted for him a bril- 
liant career. 

When the late unhappy civil war was imminent, young Healy 
was among the first to enlist as a volunteer, and through his efli- 
cient aid a splendid company, composed of the best men in the 
county, was organized, of wiiich he was elected 1st Lieutenant, 
and afterwards Captain. This Company was a part of the " Old 
55th Virginia," which had upon its battered bainicr, when it 
was furled forever at Appomattox, the names of every great 
battle fought in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. 



238 tp:e univeesity ]\:kmoeial. [Auguet, 

Captain Healy, though one of the youngest men in his reg- 
iment, had the most remarkable influence over the men and officers 
in his command. Such were liis force of character, his higli moral 
courage, his brave and fearless bearing in battle, his mild and 
gentle manners in camp, and his unselfish devotion to the comfort 
and welfare of his men, that he became the idol of his whole reg- 
iment. 

He was earnest and conscientious in his convictions of duty, 
and thoroughly devoted to the cause in which he offered up his 
young life. 

The following extracts from hislettertto his mother and others, 
give a better insight into his real character than any sketch of his 
life and peculiar characteristics could possibly convey. They 
contain sentiments worthy of the immortal Stonewall Jackson : — 

" Our authorities seem to be concentrating their forces 

in Virginia and about Richmond, for the purpose of defending it 
to the last. If the enemy gets possession of Richmond, I fear we 
shall be forced to abandon Virginia, and suffer the good old State 
to fall into the hands of ruthless invaders, w^ho can neither appre- 
ciate the spirit and genius of her people, nor respect the historic 
memories which her very name recalls. Ca i we stand tamely by 
and see Virginia struggling for her very exisLence as a State, her 
sovereignty threatened, her soil overrun by those W'ho have sworn 
to chano;e her noble institutions and reduce her to the condition of 
a conquered province ? No. Every consideration of interest and 

of honor forbids it. We must all hurry to her rescue 

You must not, dear mother, be distressed on my account. The 

same kind Providence which preserved me at , can protect 

me on the battle-field, or wherever the fortunes of war may carry 
me. I am blessed with health, and if this be preserved to me, 
the duties of the camp will be light." 

In a letter to his sister, Mrs. Judge Christian, he says : — 

" You may well imagine that I too, long for this cruel 

war to terminate. I would do anything in my power, and give 
anything and everything I have to give, to bring it to a close upon 
terras honorable to my country. But if it is not to close until the 
South is subjugated and these States reduced to conquered pro- 
vinces, then I do humbly pray that it may have no end. Yes, I 
would infinitely prefer to spend the rest of my days in camp, suf- 
fering all its hardships and dangers, rather than live in peace, 
purchased by the subjugation of ray country." 



18G0.J THE UKIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 239 

Another extract from a letter to his mother: — "No, dear 
i;(]")ther, I would not leave the army if I could. If I am 
spared to enjoy that independence which we must one day 
achieve, I shall be fully compensated for all I have endured, and 
will have the proud reflection that I contributed my humble ser- 
vices to the accomplishment of that great object. If I fall, I fall 
in the discharge of my duty to my country, I fall in battling for 
liberty against tyranny, and shall sleep in a patriot's grave." 

We give one more extract from a letter to his brother, not only 
because of the noble sentiments it contains, but because it seems 
to foreshadow his sad but glorious death. It was written just 
before the great battles around Richmond : — " Tell mother 
if we are defeated, she must not despair. President Davis says 
there will still be fighting-ground enough in Virginia for the next 
twenty years. But if we are driven from Virginia, I shall follow 
the army into North Carolina, and, if it is still forced to fall back, 
I shall still follow the army, until they drive us to the southern- 
most part of Florida, and then, for the first time, conceive the 

idea that we may be defeated in this struggle Brother 

Tom, it is painful to me to write the words good-bye. Heaven 
only knows whether I shall ever enjoy the pleasure of seeing you, 
or of even writing to you again. In the presence of this great 
event which is so soon to transpire, is it strange that melancholy 
forebodings and painful emotions should arise in my bosom and 
make me reluctant to lay down my pen, as if it were the hand of 
a retiring friend ? I have no presentiment that my course is almost 
run, that this battle is to send me to my long home, and that I am 
never to see you and the loved ones at home again ; no, not that. 
But I do know that my chances of escape are no better than 
others, and some must be killed; so Good-bye. "^ 

It was at the second battle of Manassas, just at the moment of 
victory, on the evening of August 30th, 18G2, and when Captain 
IIealy was leading his Company in the final charge made by his 
immortal leader, Stonewall Jackson, that he received his death- 
wound. An eye-witness, a member of his Company, thus describes 
the scene : — " Captain Healy, with his cap in one hand and his 
sword in the other, was in advance of his Company, cheering them 
on to the charge. His face, radiant Avith the enthusiasm of vic- 
tory, shone with that manly beauty for which it was so remark- 
able, when he exclaimed, ' Come on, boys. Victory and glory 



240 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[August, 



once more on the plains of Manassas ! ' These were the last 
words he ever uttered. The fatal shot at that moment sped to 
the brain, and he fell dead without a groan or struggle ; and when 
he was buried by his comrades, his face still wore the smile of 
triumph and joy." 

A nobler man never died for his country, a purer spirit never 
took its flight to the bosom of its God. 

This imperfect sketch ought not to be closed without reference 
to one incident, putting on record the noble words of his mother. 
"When the news came of the death of Captain Healy, a whole 
county was in mourning ; for he was not only the pride of his 
family, but also of the whole county. In his own family circle, 
mother, sisters and brothers were stricken with inconsolable 
ano-uish, and wounded hearts still bleed afresh whenever his name 
is mentioned. But the blow fell with crushing force upon his 
ao-ed mother. He was her youngest child, and the idol of her 
heart. None but a mother can know what is a mother's joy and 
a mother's pride in such a boy as hers. While loving friends 
gathered around her to offer consolation, as best they could, in her 
inconsolable grief, one of the number said to her, that, as soon as 
it was possible, he would go to the battic-field and bring home 
the loved body of her son, and deposit it in the old family 
burying-gronnd, where she might be laid by his side. Her reply 
was (and it is this noble sentiment, W'orthy of a Spartan mother, 
that ought to be recorded) : — " Let him rest where he lies. The 
last resting-place of a soldier who dies for his country, should be 
upon the field where he fell." 

But this imperfect sketch would be altogether incomplete, with- 
out some brief reference to the moral and Christian character of 
its subject. Captain Healy had the priceless advantage of early 
religious training. A pious father's teachings and example, and 
a Christian mother's gentle admonitions and prayers, early led 
him to investigate the great truths of the Bible, which resulted at 
the early age of sixteen years, in his uniting himself with a Bap- 
tist Church, of which he continued an exemplary and consistent 
member, amid all the temptations and vicissitudes of life in the 
college and the camp. As a Christian as well as a soldier, ^^ he 
fought a good fight." 



1862.] THE UIS'IVEESITY MEMORIAL. 241 

GEORGE K. ROY ALL, B. L., 

Private, Company G, Hth Virginia Infantry. 

George Keith Roy all, fourth son of the late Rev. John J. 
Royall, of Fauquier county, was born in Winchester, Virginia, 
February 4th, 1837. His mother was a daughter of the hite George 
Keith Taylor, of Petersburg, granddaughter of Colonel Thomas 
Marshall, of Revolutionary fame, and niece of Chief-Justice Mar- 
shall. 

Very delicate in his infancy, George Royall's health con- 
tinued very feeble until his father removed to Mt. Ephraim, the 
family seat in Fauquier, where the habits and sports of country life 
wrought in him considerable vigor and energy of body. When 
about six years old he became greatly interested in the work of 
loreign missions, and one day asked his father if he would give 
him a shilling to put in the " Missionary Box" if he cut up a load 
of wood for the house. Mr. Royall agreed to do it, and had a load 
of sticks, about the size of a man's arm, brought to the wood -yard, 
and the little fellow chopped away, day after day, until it was 
ready to carry to his mother's chamber. This shilling was prob- 
ably his first contribution to this cause, but he continued to give, 
while yet a boy, until the amounts, forwarded little at a time, 
summed up several dollars. Such is the evidence of his youthful 
energy and perseverance, qualities which characterized him in 
manhood also. He was not less marked by his candor, his truth- 
fulness, and his ardent devotion to the few to whom he gave his 
friendship. Along with these fine traits was a strong will, which, 
often foretokening a strong head in the man, not less frequently 
causes the child to be cailed headstrong. Thus it was with 
George, who was not so easily controlled as the rest of the chil- 
dren ; and hence, while they were educated at home, he was sent 
to the neighborhood school, conducted by Mr. Pope. Here his 
ambition was aroused, and in a little time he was at the head of 
his classes — a position which he retained until he was fourteen, 
when his father took charge of his education. At eighteen he 
entered the College of New Jersey, at Princeton, and maintained 
a good standing as a Freshman ; but, during kis second year there, 
his father died suddenly, and he was called home to attend to the 
affairs of the family. 
16 



242 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. [Angnst, 

111 October, 1857, Iiq became a student at the University of 
Virginia, and at the close of the session he graduated in Consti- 
tutional and International Law and Government, and in Moral 
Philosophy. The next year he took the entire course of Law, 
and graduated with the title of Bachelor of Law. During his 
University career the writer was honored with his acquaintance 
and his friendship. As might be readily inferred from his suc- 
cess, he was a close and diligent student. The self-will which 
characterized his youth, Vv'as, at that time, not obtrusive, if notice- 
able at all, being happily balanced by a matured judgment. He 
was of small stature, with the darkest blue eyes, brown hair 
waving slightly, and teeth of pearly whiteness. In manner he 
was dignified and courtly, forbidding a too hasty approach, or an 
unwarrantable intimacy ; but his friendship, when once won, was 
not capricious, nor easily alienated. 

Having achieved the honors of the University, and having laid 
well the foundation of a noble profession, he settled in Richmond, 
and was admitted to the bar. Among the friends he made there 
was A. B. Guigon, Esq., now Judge of the Hustings Court of 
that city. In a letter now before the writer, and dated September 
15th, 1870, Judge Guigon says: — "I knew George Eoyall 
well. He came to Richmond after leaving college, and took an 
office near mine, for the practice of law. Daily and familiar inter- 
course with him grew into an affectionate intimacy. Almost too 
modest and retiring for successful struggle in the profession he had 
chosen, he possessed a clear and well-balanced intellect, good judg- 
ment and fair powers of study. But above all, his high sense of 
honor and his genial ways endeared him to me and to other friends 
he made in his new home. I never saw him after April, 1861, 
when I went into active service in a different portion of the army 
from that in which he served ; but I shall ever cherish my recol- 
lection of hira as one of my pleasantest memories." 

The headstrong, self-willed boy had thus developed into a 
modest and retiring man, "almost too modest for successful 
struggle in his profession." He practised law nearly two years 
in Richmond, with what success the writer has not learned. 

When volunteer companies were forming for the war, Royall 
joined one raised by Captain Joseph G. Griswold, Avith the under- 
standing that he might withdraw from it, if he desired, before the 
company was mustered into service. About that time his mother's 



^sy2.] THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOKIAL. 243 

overseer volunteered also, and lier aifairs becoming involved, 
RoYALL left his company and went to Mt. Ephraim. While 
there he was elected Captain of a militia company in the county, 
and was in command of it when called into service just previous 
to the first battle of Manassas. 

When the militia was disbanded, he returned to Fauquier and 
remained in charge of his mother's affairs until the following 
February. He then volunteered as a private in Company O, 
Captain Kirk Otey, of the 11th Virginia Infantry. In this com- 
mand he served "as a good soldier," in the battles of Williams- 
burg and Seven Pines, in the fight about Richmond, and in the 
second battle of Manassas. 

When General Johnston retired from Centreville in March, 
Fauquier was at once occupied by the enemy, and until the close 
of the war, Mrs. Royall had little intercourse with her sons in the 
army. She never saw George after he enlisted, and only three 
short letters from him were received through the lines. A poor 
neighbor, who was with him in the battles at Richmond, told his 
family " Geokge ft like a lion." One of his servants, hired with 
the army, reported after the second battle of Manassas, that '' the 
last time he saw Mars George he had his Testament in his hand, 
praying by a wounded soldier." Those who knew Royall will 
not hesitate to believe both reports ; and together they furnish 
probably the best record that could be made of a soldier's life. 
That he was brave, the manner of his death, presently to be re- 
lated, shows clearly enough ; and his dogged courage in battle had 
won upon the heart and stirred the jjride of the illiterate neigh- 
bor, who probably thought of him still as the boy who would have 
his own way, even on the battle-field. Under the ministry of 
that faithful Chaplain, Rev. J. C. Cranberry, he was converted to 
the faith of Christ; and he was not a man to do things by halves. 
, During the course of the war, Dr. Stiles, who visited and preached 
to the brigade, sent word to Mrs. Royall that he had never seen a 
more devoted and decided Christian than George. It is not im- 
probable then, indeed it is in perfect keeping with his character, 
that, as opportunity occurred, he sought to win others to Him in 
whom he trusted. And surely it is pleasant to think of him, with 
God's Word in his hand, kneeling during the intervals of battle 
upon the very field where he was presently to make his grave, and 
pointing the dying soldiers to the rest of Heaven into which he 
was himself so soon to enter. • * 



244 THE UNTVEESITY MEMORIAL. lAugnst, 

On the 30tii of August, 1862, the last day of the second great 
fight at Manassas, he was killed by a musket ball which pierced 
his head, entering at almost the centi-e of the forehead. His 
brother William, who was a private in Company A, 9th Vir- 
ginia Cavalry, saw him on the battle-field after he was killed, 
but he Avas not permitted to leave his command, whicii was hotly 
engaged in the same action, to take care of his body. And so, 
though so near to his mother's home, he was buried among the 
thousands that lay around him, with nothing to mark the»spot. 
For this, however, his grave is not less glorious, nor his rest less 
peaceful. 



JOHN D. PITMAN, 

Sergeant, Cempany E, 8lh Florida Infantry. 

*' He who serves his country well," says Voltaire, " has no need 
of ancestors." If to fight for her honor and to die in her defence 
may be counted good service to one's country, then did this young 
Floridian win for himself this boasted distinction. 

John D. Pitman was born in Jackson county, Florida, January 
28th, 1843. In the brief notes traced for the writer by the tremu- 
lous hand of his aged widowed mother, Mrs. Martha Pitman, 
no reference was made to his parentage. In youth he was so 
devoted to study that his health was injured by too constant appli- 
cation ; and it is evident that he possessed abilities which would 
have secured literary distinction in maturer life. At the age of 
fifteen he was a writer for the papers of Marietta, Georgia, and 
two years after for the Macon Telegraph and The Field and Fire- 
side. In October, 1860, he became a student at the University of 
Virginia; he returned the following session, and prosecuted his 
studies until the spring of 1862, when in May he determined to 
enter the army. Going directly home, he volunteered in the 
"Clarke Rifles." This company was ordered to Tallahassee in 
June, and remained on duty there a month. In July " the Rifles " 
— now Company E, 8th Florida Infantry — were ordered to the 
seat of war in Virginia. His brief career there is summed np by 
the following obituary notice, written by the Rev. W. Cleisky, of 



1S62.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL, 245 



the'' Presbyterian Church, who was intimately acquainted with 
him : — 

"Died at Manassas, Virginia, August 31st, 1862, of a wound 
received in the great battle of the 30th, John D. Pitman, of 
Marianna, Florida, a Sergeant in Company E, 8th Florida Regi- 
ment, aged nineteen years and eight months. He was the last 
surviving son of his mother, ' and she a widow.' Pressing forward 
with his comrades in pursuit of the already defeated enemy, and 
cheering with great ardor, a shell, shattering his left thigh, 
inflicted a wound which he survived only till the following 
morning. 

" Thus has fallen a young man who gave more than ordinary 
promise of future usefulness and honor. For more than a year 
previous to the breaking out of the war, he was a student in the 
University of Virginia, and his sound intellect, serious, reflective 
disposition, energetic industry in the pursuit of his studies, and 
high moral principles, amply justified his friends in anticipating 
for him a career alike honorable to himself and beneficial to others. 
But animated by an ardent patriotism, which with him was prin- 
ciple and not an impulse merely, he left his studies, entered the 
army as a volunteer, went with his regiment to Virginia in July, 
and within a few short weeks was called to lay down his life for 
his country. 

" Though not a professing Christian, he had for some time 
given evidence of being actuated by religious principles, and 
a few days before his departure for the seat of war, declared iiis 
intention of uniting with the Church on the first opportunity. 
His friends, therefore, deem that they have grounds for believing 
he has been called to join the Church on high, and in this belief 
they mourn not as those who have no hope." 



HENRY LE NOBLE STEVENS, 

Volunteer Aide to Colonel P. F. Stevens, Commanding the Holcombe Legion. 

On the 19th of September, 1827, Henry Le Noble Stevens 
Avas born at Pineville, South Carolina. He was the son of the 
late Charles Stevens of that State, whose reputation as a literary 



246 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. LAugust, 

man and as a political writer was not confined to his native State, 
and whose kindly nature and ready sympathy witli distress ren- 
dered his memory fragrant among his neighbors. Henry inher- 
ited, in a great degree, the kindliness of his father's disposition , 
and from childhood was marked by his adherence to truth A. 
generous desire — disinterestedness we call it — to contribute to 
the happiness of his fellows, however small their claims upon him, 
had much to do with his personal popularity as a student. 

In October, 1844, he entered the College of Charleston. Here 
he remained two years, and in the fall of 1846 he became a stu- 
dent at the University of Virginia. About the middle of Jiis 
second session at the University, he returned home and soon after 
assumed the management of liis planting interests. 

Upon attaining his majority he came into possession of a hand- 
some fortune. Unlike many in similar circumstances, he did not 
waste his means in a life ot extravagance. Yet, with a lavish 
generosity wholly congenial witii his nature^ his income was 
largely spent in unostentatious deeds of charity, many ol which 
have been gratefully acknowledged by the recipients since his 
death. 

By his successful management, Mr. Stevens greatly improved 
his property, and at the time of his death, although a young man, 
was esteemed one of the very best and most successful planters in 
his neighborhood. 

In March, 1849, he was married to Henrietta Gaillard, 
daughter of the late Samuel Gaillard, of St. John's Berkley, South 
Carolina, and at the beginning of the war he had an interesting 
family to endear him to his home. But the endearments of home 
and the luxuries enjoyed at his own hearthstone, were outweighed 
by the impulses of patriotism and the call of duty, and hence, at 
an early period of the war, Mr. Stevens was serving his State 
as a soldier. Joining first, as a private, the "Rutledge Mounted 
Riflemen," he did duty with them for some time on the neighbor- 
ing islands and along the coast. 

When the Holcombe Legion was organized, hejoined it as Vol- 
unteer Aide, to Colonel (now Rev.) P. F. Stevens, for whom he 
entertained a high personal regard, and in that capacity accom- 
panied it to Virginia in July, 1862. Several years before this he 
had professed himself an humble follower of the meek and lowly One, 
and having thus enrolled himself as a soldier of Christ, he con- 



^ggoj THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 247 

tinned to fight under the Christian's banner until his life's end. 
Of his personal intrepidity in the hour of conflict, an estimate 
may be drawn from the opinion of his gallant commander, who 
thus wrote of him : — "His character daily grew upon me, and 
won both my love and my respect. 1 saw him in action twice; 
once on the Rappahannock, where we were for a long time exposed 
to a severe artillery fire, which lost me a number of men. Mr. 
Stevens was as cool and regardless of danger as if on a parade. 
Again, on the fatal day, Manassas No. 2, he displayed the same 
i)erfect indifference to danger when we were ordered forward." 

While advancing against the enemy at this second battle of 
Manassas, August 30th, 1862, he was shot down by a ball through 
the thigh. His wound hastily bound up, he was left on the field 
by his advancing comrades. On their return they found him on the 
same spot; but, in the interval, a fragment of a shell, which had 
fallen and burst near him, had entered his thigh, inflicting a second 
severe wound, and a ball had passed through his arm .' Thus 
broken and mangled, he was removed to a place of safety and com- 
parative comfort in the neighborhood. For the first four days 
after his wound, his friends were hopeful of his recovery ; but on 
the fifth day a change was noticed, and on the- seventh, one of 
those Avho watched at his side wrote thus sadly to South Caro- 
lina : — 

" Camp Hospital, near the Battle-ground \ 
OF 30th August. Sept. 6th, 1862. j 

" I am sorry to give you a different account of Mr. Stevens 
from what I did in my earlier note. He has sunk very much 
within the past two days. . . Dr. P. G. Snowdeu has no hope 
of him." 

His end was already very near ; about noon of the next day, 
conscious of his condition, he died calmly, and full of resigna- 
tion. Another letter told of the stunning grief that fell upon the 
^Yidowed heart — widowed ere it suspected that danger was nigh, 
and even while it was beating joyously with hope of speedy 

reunion : — 

" GoRDONSViLLE, Sept. 12th, 1862. 

"Mr. Stevens died on the 7th, before his afflicted wife, who 
had gone on to meet him, even heard he was wounded. Dr. 
Snowden was with him and paid him every attention of the skill- 
ful physician and kind friend. . . . The Rev. INIr. Porter was 



248 " THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [August, 

with Mr. Stevens, and was of much comfort to him in his last 
hours. He knew his end was near, and was resigned." 

The deep and unfeigned expressions of sorrow manifested by 
the whole body of his slaves, upon the news of his death, testified 
their aifection for him and marked him as the kind and attentive 
master And the- grief that pervaded the community showed 
that Death had claimed as his victim one beloved by all. In 
evidence of the esteem in which he was generally held, we append 
the following extracts from an editorial notice of him, which 
appeared in the Charleston Daily Cowrzer, Sept., 1862: — 

" This high-toned gentleman, generous spirit and gallant soldier 
is added to the martyrs of the atrocious war waged against the 
South. Mr. Stevens was the only (surviving) son of the late 
Charles Stevens, of Pineville ; a gentleman who was as much 
admired for his literary attainments as he was esteemed for his 
many virtues and beloved for his amiable qualities. Young 
Stevens was maV^rnally descended from the Ravenels, a highly 
ho.nored name and highly esteemed family, or rather race, in our 
midst. Possessing an ample fortune, he made a noble use of it, 
and rendered his name synonymous with benevolence and liberality. 
As amiable as he was generous, he won the warmest affection of 
kindred and friends, and conciliated the kind fcoling of all who 

knew him H*e received his death-wounds while gallantly 

fighting for his country in the last three days' battle on the plains 
o/ Manassas, and on the 7th inst., with calmness and resignation, 
yielded his useful and honorable life a sacrifice on the altar of 
patriotism, dying in the prime of life, and leaving a widow and 
young child to mourn the irreparable loss of the loving husband 

and tender father And now, having sketched our young 

friend, let us hold him up to the young men of the country as an 
example worthy of imitation, and urge them by all they hold 
dear and sacred to live the life he did, that when their last hour 
shall come, they may like him be prepared with calmness and 
resignation to meet the awful change that awaits us all when * tliis 
mortal shall put on immortality."' 



1^, THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 24S 

JAMES M. HOLLADAY, 

Private, Compauy B, 10th Virginia Infantry. 

Beyond tlie mountains of Kurdistan, in the northwestern part 
of the Persian Empire, is tlie home of the Nestorians, a people of 
different race from the Mohammedan Persians, and, from a very 
early age, nominally Christian ; but now for along period subject 
to the Mohammedan rule, and having lost, in their ignorance and 
degradation, all ])nt the most exterior forms of Christianity. The 
more civilized portion of this people, together with their Persian 
rulers, inliahit an extensive plain which stretches for seventy-five 
miles between the salt-water lake, or Sea of Ooroomiah, and the 
Kurdish Mountains. This plain, as seen from the mountains, is 
surpassingly beautiful. The eye is greeted by hundreds of villages 
wdiicli seem to rise from the very midst of the orchards and vine- 
yards, and through the broad fields of wheat and clover one may 
trace the numerous canals by the thick hedges of sycamores, pop- 
lars, and willows that skirt their banks. In the midst of all this 
fertility the Nestorians live in abject poverty, ground down by the 
tyranny of irresponsible subordinates of a despotic government. 
Near the centre of the plain there is a walled city of some thirty- 
five thousand inhabitants, called also Ooroomiah, and said to have 
been the birth-place of Zoroaster. 

Here, some forty years ago, was established one of the stations 
of the American Board of Foreign Missions ; and it has proved, 
next after that to the Sandwich Islands, perhaps the most gratify- 
ing of all their fields of labor. 

Among the earliest missionaries to this place were the Kev. 
Albert Lewis Holladay, and his wife, Anne Yancey, daughter of 
James Minor, Esq., of Albemarle county, Virginia. 

]\Ir. Holladay was a native of Spottsylvania^county, where mem- 
bers of his family still reside upon lands granted in colonial times 
to one of their ancestors, Captain John Holladay, for services ren- 
dered in defending the border against the incursions of the 
Indians. His fatlier, the late Waller Holladay, of Prospect Hill, 
was a half-brother of General Lewis Littlcpage, who acquired 
celebrity in European armies, and rose to be Chaiiiberlain to 
Stanislaus Augustus, the last King of Poland. He himself was 



250 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. [August, 

one of the earliest students at the University of Virginia, and his 
name appears in the list of the first graduates in Mathematics at 
that institution. 

Of these missionaries James Minor Holladay was the second 
son who lived beyond infancy. He was born in the city of Ooroo- 
miah, on the 23d day of June, 1841. During his infancy and 
early childhood he suffered much from the unhealthy influences of 
a climate which has allowed no child of American or European 
parents continuing to reside there, to attain to years of maturity. 
One of its evil effects he experienced as long as he lived, in the 
weakness of his eyes. In July, 1845, his parents were compelled 
by ill-health to leave the country. After spending the winter in 
the vicinity of Smyrna, they reached America in May, 1846, and 
lived one year at Bremo, the residence of General John H. Cocke, 
in Fluvanna, Virginia. In 1847 they removed to Albemarle 
county. 

As James grew up, he developed a quick mind, and generous, 
strong emotions. He had a marked taste for the beautifid in 
poetry and in art ; and, although he had had no advantages for 
learning, he showed considerable aptitnde for drawing. He was 
very bright and cheerful in disposition, playful in manner, and 
full of spirit. At the age of fifteen a terrible loss overtook him, 
in common with the rest of the family, in the death of his father. 
Those only who knew thi& father — so elevated in intellect and 
character, and yet so near in kindness and affection ; so beauti- 
fully adding to the noblest qualities of man the tenderest attri- 
butes of woman, and in all so earnestly consecrated to Christ — 
are able to appreciate his loss. The constant presence during his 
last days of that Saviour to whom he had given his life, was 
evident to all who had the privilege of being with him ; and the 
effect upon James of what he saw then, was marked and perma- 
nent. Some time later he made a profession of Christianity, and 
connected himself with the Presbyterian Church in Charlottes- 
ville. Soon after this, being debarred from tl'ie pursuit of his 
education by the extreme weakness of his eyes, he acted for some, 
months as Colporteur, in the Valley of Virginia and in the 
county of Stafford. After this he determined to become a physi- 
cian ; and, his eyes having considerably improved, he entered as a 
student of medicine at the University of Virginia, for the session 
of 1859-60. He immediately took a high stand in his classes, _ 



1862.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 251 

and was spoken of most favorably by his Professors; but he was 
so much hindered by the weakness of his eyes that he could not 
offer for graduation. The next session he returned to the Uni- 
versity, where the outbreak of the war found him. He sympa- 
thized strongly with the course pursued by the Southern States, 
and was from a very early period an earnest advocate for the 
secession of Virginia. The same night on which the Ordinance 
of Secession was passed by the Convention at Richmond, the fact 
was telegraphed to the University, and the next night the com- 
pany to which he belonged, the Albemarle Rifles, commanded by 
R. T. W. Duke, of Charlottesville, set out for Harper's Ferry. 
His company subsequently joined the army which was gathering 
at Culpeper Court-House, and was incorporated as Company B 
into the 19th Virginia Infantry. With this regiment Holladay 
went to Manassas Junction, and was present at the famous battle 
of the 21st of July. 

During the calm which followed this battle, a plan which he 
had drawn was shown to General Beauregard, who was so pleased 
with it that he offered him a place among his suite. But James, 
not feeling fully competent for the position, declined it. While 
the army was in win tor- quarters, he obtained a furlough to visit 
his home. Arriving there, and finding that nothing had been 
heard for an unwonted time from his brother Waller, who was 
then a private in the 59th Virginia Infantry, he proceeded at once 
to their winter-quarters, near Meadow Bluff, in Western Virginia, 
and, finding him sick, procured leave of absence for him also, and 
took him home. It was the last time that the whole family were 
gathered together. 

One was absent from the next gathering when the remainder 
met around the death-bed of him who was now the most active 
among them. 

Returning to his regiment, he participated in the trying march 
to Yorktown. When the army fell back after the battle of Wil- 
liamsburg, he was left sick by the roadside, and fell into the hands 
of the enemy. From this time his friends know little of what 
befell him. He was taken first to the Old Capitol Prison, where 
he was kindly treated, and for a time he seemed to get better. 
From thence he was transferred to Fort Delaware, receiving on 
his passage tlirough Baltimore evidences of the sympathy and kind- 
ness for which the Southern people of that city were so distin- 
guished during the war. " 



252 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [August, 

But who can tell what he suffered in the long night of cruel 
captivity which followed? — wasting away under a treatment 
which was wearing enough to those who were well, his active 
spirit fretting under the confinement, and his loving heart yearn- 
ing unutterably for his mother, who he knew must be suifering 
at home. Yet we believe that while his body was growing weaker 
every day, God was building up and establishing the life of the 
spirit. The following lines, found among the papers which he 
brought from Fort Delaware, and supposed to have been written 
while he was there, will serve to show the current of his thoughts 
in this direction : — • 

"To satisfy each craving lust, 
Begot of earth ; 
To drink of every sensual stream, 

And know its worth ; 
To drown each higher rising thought 

Within the breast, 
Lest it condemn a fleshly life 

And bring unrest ; 
To make the mind the body's slave, 

That it may give 
New pleasures to a carnal taste, — 

Is this to live ? 

*' To get estate, to gather wealth 

Within stronghold ; 
To place in bank and iron safe 

Great heaps of gold ; 
To serve the great and crush the poor 

For sake of gain; 
To sliut out God, and spot the soul 

With many a stain ; 
To gain your wish, and win the all 

That gold can give, 
Without one hope beyond the earth, — 

Is this to live ? 

*' To lead the marshalled bands to war 

And bloody strife ; 
To gather fame, estate, and power, 

By taking life ; 
To write your name on history's page 

In woi'ds of gore ; 
To fill the heart of wife and child 

With bitter store ; 
To gain the fame, the fear, the hate. 

The sword mav give, 
By spilling seas of human blood, — 

Is this to live ? 

"To gain by years of deep research 
A goodly store 
In every field and deep recess 
Of earthly lore ; 



^860.: THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 253 

To scale the mountain's bigbest peak, 

Fathom the sea, 
And know each creature, flower, and stone, 

And every tree ; 
To know, when knowledge knows no more 

AV^hat name to give, 
"Without a thought of Nature's God, — 

Is this to live ? 

" To follow with a steadfost heart, 

Through light and shade, 
A high and holy aim in life. 

Though oft delaj'ed ; 
When dangers lower above your path, 

To scorn to fly ; 
To still press on, although success 

Dazzle the eye ; 
Seeking to honor by your life 

The God above; 
Living for others, not yourself, 

A life of love; 

" Keeping the talent of your Lord 

With watchful care. 
That it may gain as life declines, 

And increase bear ; 
To help the poor, the sick, the weak, 

With earthly store. 
Nor turn the empty soul in wait 

Back from thy door ; 
This to do, not for the name 

That earth may give. 
But for the sake of God, — this is 

Indeed to lioe.^' 

Exchanged in the summer of 1862, he was landed ten miles 
below the city of Richmond ; and, as he had not been met there 
by any conveyance, he had to drag himself through the hot August 
sun, as best he could, to the city. A relative whom he met there 
sent him to Duncan Lodge, the residence of his uncle, Houo Alex- 
ander R. Holladay, in the suburbs of the city. Here he was 
found the next day by his brother, who succeeded in procuring an 
order for him to be sent to his home near Charlottesville. Thus 
he was at last granted tlie wish of his heart, that he might meet 
hi^ mother once again. 

On the 23d of August he became very ill, and two of his 
brothers, who were then in a battery at Gordonsville, were sent 
for a day or two afterwards. They arrived only to find him deli- 
rious, and unable to recognize them. On the evening of Satur- 
day, the 30th day of August, he quietly breathed his last. All the 
members of his family were with him, except one brother, who 
arrived too late. 



254 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[August, 



His remains were carried to Prospect Hill, in Spotsylvania 
county, where they were buried by the side of his father and 
grandfather. 



JOHN MONCURE HULL, 

Private, Co. B, 9th Virginia Cavalry. 

John Moncuee Hull was born near Falmouth, Stafford 
county, Virginia, August 5th, 1839. His father, Mr. Paul Hull, 
was the grandson, paternally, of Colonel Richard Hull, and 
maternally, of Colonel Thomas Gaskins (formerly written Gas- 
coigne). Both of these took an active part and held high posi- 
tions in the Revolutionary struggle. 

His mother, Mrs. Sarah M. Hull, is a grand-daughter of Rev. 
John Moncure, one of the first rectors of Overwharton Parish, 
Stafford county, who died in 1764. This gentleman, according 
to the statement of his daughter, ]\Irs. Gov. Wood, "was a 
Scotchman descended from a French ancestor, who fled among 
the first Protestants who left France in consequence of the perse- 
cution that took place soon after the Reformation. He had an 
excellent education, and had made considerable progress in the 
study of medicine, when an invitation to seek an establishment in 
Virginia induced him to cross the Atlantic." Judge P. V. Daniel, 
of the Supreme Court, says of him : — " My maternal grandfather, 
John Moncure, a native of Scotland, was the regular minister 
both of Aquia and Potomac Churches." 

Rev. Mr. Moncure married a daughter of Dr. Gustavus Brown, 
of Port Tobacco, Maryland. He was poor and in delicate health, 
and the father "did not think him an eligible match for his 
daughter." - But, to quote from Bishop Meade, " the opposition 
of Dr. Brown to the marriage of his eldest' daughter with a 
poor clergyman, does not seem to have been attended with the 
evils which he doubtless apprehended, for Mr. Moncure prospered 
both in temporal and spiritual things. He has numerous descen- 
dants, who have also prospered, and many of them are living on 
the very lands bequeathed to them by their ancestor, who pur- 
chased them at a cheap rate during his ministry." These descen- 



jgg2.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 255 

dants, now peopling to a large extent the section of country 
referred to, were, before the late war, among Virginia's most hon- 
ored sous, and served her in some of the most important offices 
of public trust, both legislative and judicial. Among those who 
served in the latter capacity, Mas the brother of Mrs. Hull, Hon. 
R. C. L. Moncure, Judge of the Court of Appeals. 

At an early age Moncure Hull exhibited a remarkable fond- 
ness for books, and his father, though in moderate circumstances, 
determined to give him every facility for a thorough education. 
There was no good school nearer than Fredericksburg, a distance 
of five miles. This, however, was a small difficulty ; he cheer- 
fully walked it day by day, and was rarely absent from his classes, 
even in the most inclement season. At school he ahvays bore off 
the first honors. Tliis was not from any extraordinary mental 
4 gift, for he was not a genius in the ordinary acceptation of that 
word; often what could be acquired by some of his classmates in 
a few moments, required of him hours of patient study. But 
every truth thus mastered, he was able to hold with remarkable 
tenacity. " The patience of a sound intellect " may accomplish 
grand results. This was his true power. He would not turn 
aside from difficulties which he met in his studies, nor rest until 
he was able to solve them. ' Thus he was usually successful, and 
thus too his advances were permanent. It was to this feature of 
his mind, this dogged persistence conjoined with a wonderful 
power of absorption, that Prof. Coleman afterwards referred, when 
he remarked that he had never been mistaken in his estimate of 
a young man's abilities as in that of Moncure Hull's. His 
appearance was not such as to impress a casual observer, and the 
Professor ranked him among the commoner sort when he came 
into his class; but long before he left college, he regarded him as 
one of the most substantial and promising. 

At the age of seventeen he entered the University. Hero he 
spent two sessions (1856-57 and 1857-58), and though but poorly 
prepared for an institution of so high grade, he was able to take 
distinctions in all his classes. For the next two years he was 
compelled, by want of means to prosecute his studies, to take up 
tlie profession of a teacher; accordingly we fiud him during this 
time tutor to the family of James Hunter, Esq., of Caroline. 

In tlie fall of 18G0, however, he returned to College with the 
determination to win its highest honors. This was a session 



256 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. [August, 

I^eculiarly unfavorable to successful study ; during the winter and 
spring most of the students, instead of working, were anxiously 
watching the events of the outside world, and before the close of 
the academic year more than half of them had left for th.eir homes 
or entered the military service. But Moncure Hull kept 
steadily on; he was not indifferent to the political issues which 
produced such excitement in the minds of others, nor was he, per- 
haps, less patriotic than they ; but the murmur of approaching 
war failed to divert his mind from the goal he had in view, and 
he continued until the very close of the session as faithful a 
student as he had been at it-s opening. 

As the result of this jjatient continuance, he graduated on his 
entire course, embracing the Schools of Latin, Matheraatic?, 
Natural Philosophy, and Moral Philosophy; which, even if there 
were no disturbing cause, was considered abundant evidence of 
diligent application, thorough preparation, and first-rate mental 
abilities. 

At the close of the session he joined a company of students, 
which, under the name of "The University Volunteers," went 
into service in AVestern Virginia, under General Wise. The 
severity of this campaign has already been alluded to. The grand 
retreat from the Kanawha, the burning at midnight of Gauley 
Bridge, the winter encampment on Big Sewell, fitly compared to 
that at Valley Forge, would form a thrillingly interesting chapter 
in the history of the war. In the following spring the University 
Volunteers were disbanded by order of the Secretary of War. 

Moncure Hull, who had been with his company in all of its 
marches, went immediately to Stafford to raise a company for ser- 
vice ; but, finding this impossible from lack of material, he joined 
the "Caroline Dragoons," — Company B, 9th Virginia Cavalry — 
then, with several other companies, on outpost duty at Stafford 
Court-House, under Captain, afterwards General, W. H. F. Lee. 

Faithfully he served as a private in this gallant regiment — so 
well known in East Virginia as the "Bloody Ninth" — par- 
ticipating in all its daring exploits. " Never shall I forget him," 
says a writer who was his comrade in Stuart's celebrated ride 
around McClellan, " never shall I forget him as he appeared stand- 
ing over the body of the gallant Latane, who fell in the first 
charge." So, always at the post of duty, ready to fight, and quick 
to succor the fallen, he was a true soldier in the higliest sense of 



ISCr'.l 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 257 



the word. Duty with him Avas everything : his was no brute 
courage. He was sensible of danger, but disi*egarded it, because 
he was influenced by principle, and upheld by a trust in God that 
it was well with him. 

Passing safely through the seven days' fight around Richmond, 
he set out with his command on its first trip to Maryland. The 
second battle of Manassas was fought and won, and the cavalry 
stopped, on the evening of the 31st of August, 1862, near Fairfax 
Court-House. The niglit was very dark and rainy ; it was pre- 
sently found that the 1st Michigan Cavalry were just in front, and 
two men, one of them Moncure Hull, were ordered ahead as 
videttes. It was too dark to see anything, but they proceeded some 
hundred yards and halted on the edge of a small stream. Hull 
had on at the time a light gray overcoat, which may have rendered 
his outline visible, even in the darkness. Suddenly there was a 
flash, followed by the sharp report of a single rifle. The bullet, 
aimed all too true, struck him full in the breast and passed entirely 
through his body. 

With the single expression, "O my God !" he fell forward with 
his arms around the neck of his faithful horse, and the noble 
animal carried him back to the command. His comrades 
gathered quickly around, but the spirit was gone — the young 
soldier off duty for ever. The army pressing onward, his 
body was left in a house by the roadside; but, like the chivalrous 
Latane, by whom he had stood so nobly, Moncure Hull found 
friendly hands to perform for him too the last sad offices. Under 
a large tree that stood in a quiet spot near the beautiful stream, 
they buried their unknown soldier and planted flowers on his 
grave. And thither, from time to time, when the stricken women 
of the South brought garlands for the graves of their soldier dead, 
came a mother who mourns a son sleeping in ah unmarked spot 
at Gettysburg, to cover his grave with spring flowers, thus doing 
for him what she hoped some kind hand would do for her own 
l)eloved boy. His remains have since been removed to the beau- 
tiful cemetery fitted up by the ladies of the Memorial Association 
at Fairfax Court-House. 

The following extracts from a letter of the Rev. AV. R. D. Mon- 
cure, a Baptist minister, now resident in the county of Stafford, 
will, while touching on other points also, give an adequate idea 
of his religious character: — " Mo^X'URE Hull was my first 
17 



258 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[August, 



cousin, but being only two years my junior, and having associated 
intimately with me from infancy, Ave were more like brothers 
than cousins. I may be thought under these circumstances to be 
scarcely capable of giving an impartial sketch of his character, but 
I utter the sentiments of all who knew him, when I say that few 
young men of greater promise fell victims to the late unhappy 
war. In person, he was rather above the medium height, but 
slender; his complexion was dark, yet generally ruddy ; his hair 
black, and straight as an Indian's. His large dark eyes wore gen- 
erally an expression of thoughtfulness, almost amounting to sad- 
ness ; but when he smiled, or became earnest in conversation, they 
sparkled with mirth or flashed with intelligence. 

" His chief mental characteristics were perseverance, unwearied 
application, clear conceptions, sound judgment. He also pos- 
sessed a fine and discriminating taste in literary compositions, and 
a great fondness for reading the best English authors. 

"His moral character, from a boy, was unspotted. His most 
conspicuous traits were great sincerity, a high sense of honor, a 
lofty disdain of anything mean, vulgar or selfish, amounting to 
impatience, and a determination to do right regardless of conse- 
quences. Exceeding diffidence and sensitiveness made him shy 
among strangers and in general society, but, with the few who 
knew him well, no one was more genial and confiding, and no one 
had a truer heart. 

" In the fall of '60, while a student at the University, he gave 
his heart to God, and was baptized into the fellowship of the 
Charlottesville Baptist Church, by Rev. A. B. Brown. He had 
always been respectful to religion, and, for two years before his 
conversion, had been the subject of serious impressions. When 
he became thoroughly awakened, he sought for salvation with his 
usual earnestness and sincerity. It was my privilege to converse 
much with him during this period, and he opened his heart to me 
very freely. His convictions were deep and pungent; everything 
was laid aside in the pursuit of the pearl of great price, and after 
a few days of intense anguish, he was enabled to rejoice in his 
Saviour, It was not difficult to predict what sort of a Christian 
Mo^'CURE Hull would make. He was not a man to do a-nything 
by halves. His diffidence made it very painful to him to take a 
conspicuous part in public exercises ; yet he never liesitated to do 
so when duty required. . . Amid all the temptations of the army, 



ig,;2] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 259 

he maintained his Christian character unsullied. . , His death 
sent a shock to many fondly-attached friends, and, though nearly 
six years have passed, he is still tenderly remembered and sadly 
missed." 



JAMES EDWARD WINSTON, 

Sd Sergeant, Company D, 13th Virginia Infantry. 

Malvern Hill — now a synonym for Aceldama — did not always 
suggest thoughts of blood. In the joyous past, ere the proud 
Ship of State was wrecked on the rocks of Kadicalism and the cry 
sauve qui pent gave the key-note of the New Idea, it designated 
more than one spot within the limits of the Old Dominion which 
some Virginian family cherishes with pride and tenderness as its 
ancestral home. But the ruthless hand of war, which spared not 
the peace of these homes, despoiled them of their name also, to 
mark the spot on which occurred one of the great conflicts of the 
Second American Revolution. 

James Edavard Wixston was born at Malvern Hill, in Louisa 
county, Virginia, July 6th, 1838. He was the son of John Hastings 
Winston and Deniaris Aletha Campbell. His paternal grand- 
father was Captain James Winston, a man noted as well for his 
strong qualities of mind as for his high living and liberal hospi- 
tality ; he was the possessor of large landed property, and at his 
death he bequeathed his family residence to his eldest son, John 
Hastings. His maternal grandfather was Captain Francis Lee 
Campbell, whose estate adjoined Malvern Hill, and who had served 
with Captain Winston in the war of tlie Revolution. It is pleas- 
ant to contemplate the experience of two such men, toiling and 
suffering together for a common cause, realizing the blessing for 
which they struggled, and returning to their homes to live as 
neighboi's and friends in the enjoyment of that peace whicii their 
patriotism had contributed to secure, and to be drawn more closely 
to each other, in their advanced years, by the intermarriage of 
their children. 

John Hastings Winston, the successor of Captain Winston at 
Malvern Hill, was a man of sterling sense and unbending integ- 



260 THE UXIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. [September, 

rity; and, like his ancestors, was fond of hounds and hunting. 
He was the father of ten children, seven of wliora still survive. 
Among these are representatives of various learned professions. 

The most important event in the childhood of James E. 
Winston was the death of his mother, whose eminent piety, as a 
member of the Presbyterian Church, commended her profession, 
and makes her memory especially precious now to her children. 
Such a loss to a boy of seven years, jiossessing a quick temper, 
strong will, and impulsive disposition, can hardly be estimated. 
He received at home the rudiments of an education, and was sent 
one year to a day-school in the neighborhood ; but not improving 
luider his teacher, he was again taken home and kept at his books. 
Sometimes, at busy seasons, he v/orked on the farm, but he was 
iinj)atient of long restraint at any employment. He delighted in 
field-sports, became an expert in bird-hunting, and so prided 
himself upon his skill as a ''shot" that he was really mortified 
when excelled. 

In 1852 his father died at the advanced age of seventy, and 
James, then about fourteen, was sent to the classical school taught 
by his eldest brother, John Hastings Winston, at " Westwood," 
near Lynchburg, Virginia. This change of home had a happy 
etfect on him ; from a thoughtless, wayward boy he became a 
diligent student; yet prompted more, perhaps, by emulation than 
by the simple love of books. He was unequal to the constant 
application of the most successful student, yet, urged on by pride^ 
he kept always among the foremost in his classes. 

His temperament at this period of his life was of the most 
mercurial cast, moving between the extremes of cheerfulness and 
despondency. His temper was quick, and he was watchful to 
resent insults, and careless of danger in doing so. But, as is 
usual with such natures, he was as ready to be reconciled when 
proper explanation was made. His candor of speech and manner 
made him open enemies, and in his hatred of hypocrisy he Avas 
apt to show his dislike for persons. 

After remaining at Westwood four years, he went in 1857 
to the University of Virginia. During the two years that he 
remained there, he took most of the academic schools, desiring, with 
a view to the profession of law, to become generally informed on 
these various subjects rather than devote himself especially to any. 
At the close of the second session he graduated in Moral Philo- 



18fr2, 



THE UKIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 261 



sophy and Political Economy. He then returned to Bedford, and 
spent a year assisting his brother in his school and prosecuting 
his legal studies, after which he joined the Law School of Judge 
Brokcnbrough, at Lexington, Virginia. His character had now 
become less angular, his temperament more serious and uniform. 
At the close of the Law School, in March, 18G1, he returned 
to his native county. The country was then drifting into war; 
and the fact, only too apparent, depressed him. He was proud 
of the greatness of the country, and opposed to its disruption. 
War necessitated the abandonment of a profession with which he 
connected hopes of political preferment. Besides tliese consider- 
ations, he was averse to the hardships of a soldier's life, and espe- 
cially to its necessary restraints and subordinations. On tiiis 
point he wrote thus, just before joining the army: — 

*' Malveen Hill, June 6th, 1861. 

" I leave for Harper's Ferry next Saturday, to take my stand 
in the ranks of the Southern army. If it had been my good for- 
tune to go there in a different capacity, I should be better satis- 
fied, as it is but natural to wish to excel, and to feel that when we 
die we shall live in the hearts of our countrymen. But as cir- 
cumstances have ordered it otherwise, I go freely and willingly in 
the humble capacity of a private, determined to do, and die, if 
Providence so wills it, in the sacred and righteous cause of the 
South, Virginia, and freedom. May God so helj) me ! " 

On the spot where his boyhood had been spent, and in sight of 
the graves of his fathers, he devoted his life to his country ; right 
nobly did he perform his vow, right soon came back to be laid 
with his ancestral dead! About the 10th of June, in company 
with Winston O. Payne, Christopher Walthall, and F. Pendleton 
Jones, all highly educated young men, he joined the 13tli Vir- 
,ginia Infantry, Colonel A. P. Hill, then at Winchester. It is 
worthy of remark, that of these four young men, who thus left 
home together and joined the same Company — Co. D — all fell 
on the field of battle. 

James Winston was thus with his regiment when it was order- 
ed to the first field of Manassas, and lie continued with it until 
his death. His brother, Frank V. Winston, was Lieutenant in 
Company D, and soon after became its Captain ; and James, by 
faithfully doing his duty, rose step by step to be 2d Sergeant in 
the Company. 



262 



THE UIS'IVEESITY MEMORIAL. [September, 



In the spring of 1862, after spending the winter at Fairfax 
Station, the 13th Virginia, then attached to the 4th Brigade of 
Ewell's Division, fell back with Johnston's army to Rappahannock 
Station. Here General Ewell remained a short time, and then 
formed a junction with Jackson at Swift Run Gap in the Valley. 
James Wixston was thus engaged in the Avhole of that arduous 
campaign which brought Banks and Shields to grief. At the bril- 
liant battle of Cedar Mountain, his clothes were pierced by several 
balls, and he was slightly wounded. His brother, Lieutenant 
Wm. A. Winston, was wounded on the same day. He made the 
celebrated march of two days by which Jackson flanked Pope, 
seized his stores at Manassas, and compelled him to retreatc And 
he participated in the series of conflicts known as Second Manassas, 
which resulted in the complete rout of Pope's army. 

After escaping injury in all these fights, James Winston fell 
on Monday, Se^jtember 1, 1862, in the short but hot contest at 
Ox Hill, where in order to arrest the pursuit of the Confederates 
and to conceal his own movements. Pope posted Kearney to resist 
the advance. Some of the Federal troops were ambushed in the 
thick woods along the cross-roads, and the ambush was partly 
successful. The 13th Virginia was marching left in front, with 
Company D in advance, and was thus brought unexpectedly upon 
a regiment of the enemy in line, and thus its left bore the brunt 
of the fire. James Winston, as 2d Sergeant and on the left of 
his company, was brought in the nearest and most exposed posi- 
tion. The regiment was ordered to lie down, and Sergeant Win- 
ston, kneeling on one knee, was in the act of loading his gun 
when he was struck behind the right ear, the ball crushing the 
Avhole hinder part of the head. He fell speechless and motionless, 
holding his rifle and the ramrod half way in the barrel as he had 
been driving down the ball. 

It was about an hour before sunset when this occurred. The 
deep thundre almost deafened the ear to the rattle of musketry, 
and a heavy drenching rain was falling. Not long after. General 
Kearney was killed, and the enemy retreated. Presently the 
clouds, too, stole away, and the light of the sinking sun poured 
forth from the west. While its last rays were dallying with the 
rain-drops that fell from the trees, the spirit of this brave man 
passed away. 

His body lay all night on the gloomy battle-field. The next 




?s* 






I 



1802.] THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOETAL. 263 

morning, Captain Frank Winston, his brother, returned by per- 
mission, buried it, with a tent-cloth for a winding-sheet, and built 
a rude rail-fence around the grave. Two weeks after, a younger 
brother, accomjjanied by a faithful -servant, carried the remains to 
Malvern Hill, and deposited them in the family burying-ground. 



SAMUEL GARLAND, Jr., B. L., 

Brigadier-General, D.H.Hill's Division. 

General Samuel Garland, Jr., was born in the city of 
Lynchburg, Ya., on the 16th day of December, 1830. He was 
the only child of Maurice H. and Caroline M. Garland. The 
former was the junior partner of S. & M. H. Garland, for many 
years a leading law firm in Lynchburg, Va.; the latter was the 
only daughter of Spottswood Garland, Avho was for many years 
Clerk of Nelson county, Va. The maternal grandmother of Gen- 
eral Garland was Lucinda, daughter of Dr. R. H. Rose and Fran- 
ces Madison, a sister of James Madison, the third President of the 
United States. 

The Roses M'ere one of the most respectable of the old families 
of Virginia. The Rev. Robert Rose, the ancestor of the family, 
was the intimate friend of Governor Spottswood. He was a cler- 
gyman of the Established Church, a Scotchman by birth, and not 
only a man of learning and piety, but a thorough man of business. 
The confidence of his friend. Governor Spottswood, in him was 
attested by his making him his executor; and his own sagacity 
was avouched by the measures he successfully took to establish the 
fortunes of his family. This he secured by taking up large bodies 
of land in the counties of Nelson and Amherst, on which his des- 
cendants have resided in comfort, and, in some cases, in affluence, 
to the present day. The oldest son of the Rev. Robert Rose was 
Colonel Hugh Rose. He married Caroline M. Jordan, of Seve:i 
Islands, by whom he had a large family of sons and daughters. 
The elck'.'it son of this marriage was Dr. R. H. Rose, mentioned 
above, who married Miss Madison. Their eldest daughter, Caro- 
line, married Dr. Turpin, of Chesterfield ; the second, Susan Law- 
son, married Governor Pleasants, and was the mother of the late 



264 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [September, 

John Hampden Pleasants, and of Hugh R. Pleasants, Esqs.: 
another daughter married her cousin, Landon Cabell, of Nelson ; 
a fourth married Samuel Irvine, of Lynchburg; Lucinda, the 
fifth, married Spottswood Garland; and Emily, the youngest, 
married Wra. Corpland, of Cumberland. Dr. Gusl-avus Rose, a 
son, married a daughter of David S. Garland, many years ago a 
Representative of the Amherst District in the Congress of the 
United States. 

The children of Spottswood Garland and Lucinda Rose were 
Hugh A. Garland, formerly Clerk of the House of Representa- 
tives, an accomplished lawyer and scholar, and the biographer of 
John Randolph; Landon C. Garland, LL. D., formerly Presi- 
dent of Randolph Macon College, in Mecklenburg county, Vir- 
ginia, and for many years President of tlie University of Ala- 
bama, until its destruction by the Federal army during the late 
war; and Caroline M., the mother of General Samuel Gar- 
land, Jr. 

From a very eai*ly age General Garland gave unmistakable 
evidence of a mind of unusual strength and quickness, and of 
the industry and taste for literature and science which prevailed 
amono; his immediate relatives in an unusual degree. Before his 
fifth year he read well and had written his first letter; at the age 
of seven years he was entered in a classical school in the county 
of Nelson. Young as he was, he kept up at this time a regular 
correspondence with his mother, in the form of a daily journal, in 
which were detailed all his studies, amusements, and the simple 
incidents of child-life. This journal was sent weekly to his home. 
At fourteen, having in the meantime lost his father at a tender 
age, he was entered at Randolph Macon College, where he remained 
one year, at the expiration of which he was removed to the Vir- 
ginia Military Institute. His course here was eminently success- 
ful, and his improvement greater, from his own well-directed 
efforts at self-culture, than is indicated even by the fact that he 
graduated second in his class. Largely through his efforts, the 
first literary society was established among the cadets, and he was 
its first President. His portrait now adorns their hall, in recog- 
nition of his meritorious service as one of the founders of the 
Society. 

Leaving the Military Institute with high honors, he entered 
the University of Virginia in October, 1849, and continued there 



j8g2^ THE UIS^IVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 265 

two sessions — those of 1849-50 and of 1850-51, — perfecting 
himself in several branches of a truly liberal education, and pre- 
paring for the practice of the law. He graduated in all the 
schools he attended, including among his college honors the degree 
of B. L., and before he had attained his majority, returned to 
Lynchburg to enter upon the practice of his profession, with a 
stock of general information, of accurate scholarship and profes- 
sional learning rarely possessed by so young a man. He had 
trained himself carefully in the habit of public speaking, by dili- 
gent attention to the exercises of the literary societies to which he 
had belonoed at the various institutions which contributed to 
his education, especially the Washington Society and the Moot 
court at the University; so that he presented himself at the bar, 
while still a minor, prepared, by native vigor of intellect and 
culture, to contest with the oldest and ablest practitioners the palm 
of forensic victory. 

Though an only child, and the heir of considerable wealth, his 
youth Mas free from vices. Books and pictures, the creations of 
intellect and art, as he remarked of himself, were his temptations. 
Gross pleasures, such as attract the young when the passions are 
strong and the appetites keen, even among the most gifted, had no 
allurements for him. As a matter of refinement and taste, not 
less than of principle, he eschewed all such indulgences. A sys- 
tematic and laborious student, he still found time to cultivate 
literature and society. His home was the scene of an elegant and 
most attractive hospitality, and abounded with the evidences of his 
taste and cultivation. 

In 1856, General Gaeland married Eliza Campbell Meem, 
youngest daughter of John G. Meem, Esq., of Lynchburg, a lady 
wdiose uncommon personal and social attractions were widely 
known and appreciated. From 1851 to 1859, General Gar- 
land's career was that of an active, earnest, and successful law- 
yer. His unusual powers as a public speaker caused him to be 
often called upon by the political party to which he belonged, to 
bear their flag on the hustings in the various canvasses of that 
decade ; and though often pitted against experienced politicians, 
those whom he represented had never occasion to blush for their 
young champion. This period was marked, too, by numerous 
engagements of a literary nature, which he met and filled with 
success and acceptation. Among them may be mentioned a course 



266 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [September, 

of popular lectures delivered in Lynchburg, in connection Avith 
the Lynchburg College, upon the law of nature and nations, and 
the oration before the Society of Alumni of the Virginia Military 
Institute. 

In October, 1859, John Brown commenced the invasion of the 
South. The community of LyncJiburg shared in tlie superficial 
excitement which that daring enterprize against Southern institu- 
tions occasioned. But there were some, and among them was 
General Garland, who saw in that event, ignominious as was its 
failure, a deep significance — that it was the flying rack which 
swept forward in advance of the storm ; that it was but the expres- 
sion of a popular desire to see Southern institutions overthrown, 
even at the expense of the destruction of Southern society. The 
fact that Brown and his supporters and instigators had wholly mis- 
taken the temper of the slaves, was to their view no reason why 
we should neglect preparation for the bursting of the tempest 
whose muttering thunders were heard in the shouts with which 
a Boston audience received Emerson's declaration that "John 
Brown had made the gallows more glorious than the Cross," and 
whose first drops were seen in the blood of Turner and the other 
victims of that piratical experiment. In November, 1859, about 
one hundred of the young men of Lynchburg united to form a 
volunteer company, and unanimously invited Garland to take 
the captaincy of it. He accepted the call, and the Lynchburg 
"Home Guard" was organized. With his usual assiduity, 
thoroughness, and attention to details. Captain Garland, himself 
a thorough master of the drill, soon made his company one of the 
finest in the State. 

Soon after the reorganization of the Home Guard, three other 
companies were formed in Lynchburg — the " Rifle Greys," under 
Captain Maurice S. Langliorne, the Latham Battery, Captain H. 
Grey Latham, and the "Wise Troop," commanded by Captain, 
subsequently General, Carleton Radford. 

No event of special interest in the life of General Garland 
occurred from this time until the fall of 1860. He then became 
a communicant of tlie Episcopal Church, and ever afterward, by 
tlie increasing ripeness of his Christian character and the growing 
earnestness of his alms, showed that the step was one taken upon 
deep conviction, and a genuine Avork of grace. 

Immediately after the passage by the Virginia Convention of 



l.sHj.;; THE UNTVEESITY MEMORIAL. 267 

the Ordinance of Secession (which by the way, though offered by 
Mr. James C. Bruce, of Halifax, was drawn by Charles R. 
Slaughter, Esq., of Lynchburg, the first cousin of General Gar- 
LAXD, and his senior law-partner), orders were sent by Governor 
Lf ' "r to the captains of the Lynchburg volunteer companies to 
hold their commands in readiness for orders to the field. In the 
busy preparation which ensued. Captain Garland Avas unsparing 
of labor and pains to provide his company with proper equip- 
ment for active duty. On the 22d April, 1861, orders Avere 
received for the companies to report at Richmond, and on the 
morning of the 23d they set out. On their arrival at Richmond, 
Captain Garland's company was quartered for a few days in the 
Monument Hotel, and then moved to the Camp of Instruction, 
which had just been established at the Fair Grounds. In a few 
days Captain Garland was promoted to a majority, and put in 
charge of four companies. On the 9th May he proceeded with 
these to Manassas Junction, where some companies recently formed 
in Alexandria, under Captain Thornton Triplett and Dr. Corne- 
lius Boyle, were already stationed. Garland being the ranking 
officer, was the commandant of the post for some two weeks, and 
formed the first regular encampment upon a spot since become 
historic. He also erected there the first field-work in a country 
afterwards furrowed by the lines of opposing armies. As troops 
arrived at Manassas and army organization progressed, in a few 
weeks the 11th Virginia Regiment was formed, and Garland, 
who already had a Colonel's commission, was assigned to com- 
mand it. It was composed of four companies from Lynchburg — 
the Rifle Greys, Captain Langhorne, Company A ; the Bcaure- 
gards. Captain Winfree, Company E; the Home Guard, Captain 
Otey, Company G, and the Jeff". Davis Guards, Captain Hutter, 
Company H; two from Campbell county. Captain Clement, Com- 
pany C, and Captain Saunders, Company B; two from Botetourt, 
Captain Houston, Company H, and Captain , Com- 
pany K; and one from Fauquier, Captain Jamison, Company I. 
The organization of the regiment was completed by the assign- 
ment of Lieutenant-Colonel David Funsten, and Major Carter 
Harrison ; J. Lawrence Meem, Adjutant, and Rev. J. C. Gran- 
berry, Chaplain. 

The 11th was brigaded, shortly after its organization, Avith the 
1st, Colonel Moore; 7th, Colonel Kemper; and 17th, Colonel 



268 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [September, 

Corse, and General James Longstreet assigned as Brigadier-Gen- 
eral. This brigade, which retained its organization to the end of 
the war, has the distinction, either by coincidence or merit, of hav- 
ing furnished, not to say made, three Lieutenant-Generals for the 
Army of Northern Virginia. It was commanded successively by 
Longstreet, Ewell, and A. P. Hill, as Brigadiers. 

Colonel Gakland and the 11th bore a part in the first collision 
upon the line in Northern Virginia, in the aifair of the 18th of 
July at Bull Run. The whole regiment, however, was not 
actually engaged, though for some hours under fire. The Fed- 
erals made at one time a strong effort to force the passage of the 
ford, at the point held by the 1st Eegiment, which requiring some 
support, General Longstreet directed Colonel Garland to detach 
and send in four of his companies under Major Harrison. They 
went in handsomely, under the lead of the gallant Harrison, and 
suffered considerable loss. Major Harrison fell at their liead, shot 
through the body, and with an arm shattered. He died on the 
next day. 

On the 21st of July, Colonel Garland's regiment was not 
engaged, nor any part of General Longstreet's brigade. They 
held the line of Bull Run for half a mile below the road from 
Manassas to Centreville, including the ground contested in the 
affair of the 18th, and throughout the day were shelled inces- 
santly by a strong detachment of artillery posted oa the hills 
towards Centreville. In the afternoon, when news of the rout of 
the Federal army at the Stone Bridge was received, the whole 
brigade was moved forward towards Centreville, to within a 
mile of the village, and still nearer the Warrenton turnpike, 
along which the wreck of McDowell's army was hurrying; but 
the advance, which was general along the whole right, consisting 
of Bonham's, Longstreet's, Jones's, and Ewell's brigades, was at 
that point unaccountably arrested, and at sunset these troops were 
drawn back to their original position behind Bull Bun. The 
next morning at an early hour. Colonel Garland received orders 
to proceed with his regiment to the turnpike between Centreville 
and the Stone Bridge, and collect the spoil left by the flying 
enemy. This was done in a heavy rain which lasted all day and 
the following night. For about two weeks Longstreet's Brigade 
was encamped at Centreville. Thence it was moved down to 
Fairfax Court-House, where it remained until October, when 



lS,.,o.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 269 

General Johnston moved back his army to the fortified lines about 
Centreville, where the army went into winter-quarters. About 
this time Longstreet was mado Major-General, and Ewell was 
commissioned Brigadier-General, and assigned to this brigade. 
The 11th remained quietly in camp, drilling and taking its turn 
of picket duty at the point, until the 20th December. On that 
day General J. E. B. Stuart, with the 1st Kentucky, 10th Ala- 
bama, 6th South Carolina, and 11th Virginia regiments, Cutts's 
Battery, and a squadron of cavalry, made his unfortunate demon- 
stration upon Drainsville, in which the force under his command 
was roughly handled by a greatly superior force of the enemy. 
The 11th, which suffered least, and indeed did not fire a musket, 
lost four men killed and fifteen to twenty wounded. * The other 
regiments suffered much more severely. Stuart withdrew the 
centre and left of his line and the guns of Cutts's Battery, the 
horses of which were so disabled as to be unable to move the 
guns, and he was so occupied with this object that he neglected to 
send Colonel Garland orders to retire. He held his regiment 
in position until the rest of the detachment were entirely clear of 
the field, when he sent word to General Stuart that he was still 
in line, in his original position, and received orders to withdraw 
and bring up the rear. There was no pursuit. The remainder 
of the winter Avas spent in camp. 

In October, 1861, General T. J. Jackson, then a Brigadier- 
General, received orders to proceed at once to the Valley and 
assume command. The orders were brought to him by Colonel 
Angus McDonald. Colonel Garland went to take leave of his 
old teacher and friend, who with characteristic promptness was 
preparing for an immediate departure to his new post of duty. 
Colonel McDonald was very solicitous about the* defence of the 
Valley, and was at General Jackson's tent. He inquired, " Gen- 
eral, what force do you take with you?" "^o phijsical force, 
sir, except my staff," was the quiet reply — an answer which with- 
out ostentation implied to those who knew him, as the world did 
not learn to do until the following spring, the quiet consciousness 
of moral power and military genius. Colonel Garland, in 
narratintr this incident at the time and afterwards, declared that 
the reply of Jackson was manifestly without the least conscious- 
ness of the interpretation to which the emphasis of his language 
pointed. 



270 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. [September, 

Late in March, General Johnston broke up his camp at Centre- 
ville, and moved by Gordonsville and Richmond to the peninsula 
to confront McClellan there. At this time Garland's regiment 
was one of the finest in the army. It M-as over nine hundred 
strong, Imving been greatly recruited under the operation of 
Governor Letcher's call for the State militia. The anxious care 
with which their Colonel attended to everything which tended to 
promote the health, Avell-being, and discipline of his command, 
bore its just fruit. The march from Manassas to Yorktown was 
toilsome, and the troops reached General Magruder's lines weary, 
but in good spirits. The sudden determination of General John- 
ston to evacuate the peninsula in a few days placed the army 
again upon the road, and Longstreet's Division brought up the 
rear. In the battle of Williamsburg, in which Hooker* was 
punished for his temerity, the 11th bore its share and suffered 
considerable loss. Colonel Garland "received a painful wound 
by a ball through the elbow, but kept his place on the field until 
the fiu-htina: was over. About this time General G. W. Ran- 
dolph, Secretary of War, recommended General Garland for 
promotion, and he was commissioned Brigadier-General, being 
nominated and confirmed along with Generals Kemper, Armi- 
stead, and Pryor. After the retreat of General J. E. Johnston to 
the neighborhood of Richmond, General Garland for a time was 
relieved from duty on account of his wound. But his absence 
from the field was brief. A brigade was assigned to him, consist- 
ing of four North Carolina regiments. 

This brigade he commanded until his death. It formed a part 
of the Division of General D. H. Hill, and participated under the 
lead of General Garland in the battle of Seven Pines, the bat- 
tles around Richmond, especially that of Gaines' Mill, on the 26th 
day of June, 1862, and in the second battle of Manassas, August 
30th of the same year. In the invasion of Maryland, which fol- 
lowed the defeat of General Pope, Garland's Brigade was the 
van of Lee's army and the first to cross the Potomac. To narrate 
the part taken by General Garland and his command in these 
operations would exceed the limits assigned by the plan of this 
work. It was such as to win the unqualified approbation of his 

*Dr. CuUen, the chief medical officer of Longstreet's Division, remained -with the 
wounded when the division continued tlie retreat. General McClellan said to 
him, "Tell 'Pete'" (Longstreet's sobriquet at West Point, when he and General 
McClellan wei-e fellow-students) " that this was Hooker's fight, not mine." 



jg„2-| THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 271 

superiors, and would undoubtedly have secured his early promo- 
tion to the command of a Division. 

While General Jackson was reducing Harper's Ferry, the other 
half of Lee's army was falling back before McClellan in the direc- 
tion of Sharpsburg, Hill's Division bringing up the rear. On the 
night of Sept. 13th, they bivouacked on the western side of the 
mountain near Boonsboro', Garland's Brigade holding the pass. 
Early in the morning of the 14th, the Federals attacked General 
Garland in great force. During the night they had gained posi- 
tion upon the heights which overlooked the road, by paths which 
had been reported to General Hill as impracticable, and Gar- 
land's Brigade, attacked by overwhelming numbers in front and 
on the flank, gave way. Their gallant commander rallied them, 
and Avell knowing the importance of holding the enemy in check, 
advanced at their head to endeavor to effect that result, when he 
fell shot through the body. " Thus," says a comrade writing of 
his fall, "in his twelfth battle the young hero fell, only thirty-one 
years of age, but full of honors, and with higher promotion just 
within his grasp. His last words were characteristic ; with that 
cool self-possession which never forsook him, as he closed his 
eyes forever he said, * I am killed — send for the senior colonel 
and tell him to take command.' " His remains were taken at once 
to Lynchburg, where, on the afternoon of the 19th of September, 
they were carried to the tomb attended by the greater part of the 
population. The citizens, in compliance with a resolution of the 
Common Council, closed their places of business, and that body, 
of which he had been for years an active and useful member, 
attended his funeral, and placed upou their journal resolutions 
expressing their sense of his merit and their loss. 

Thus perished, in the flower of his age, one of the ablest, most 
accomplished, and amiable of the many sons Virginia laid upon 
the altar of Southern independence. 



THOMAS J. RANDOLPH, Jr., 

Sergeant, Co. A^ I9th Virginia Infantry. 

Of the many gallant soldiers enrolled in Pickett's immortal 
Division, there is not one who deserves a more honorable mention 



Zi'J THE UjS^IVERSITY memorial. [September. 

than Thomas J. Eandolph, Jr. He was born in Yicksburg, 
Mississippi, June 22d, 1840. His parents, Thomas J. Randolph, 
Sr., and Mary A. Pettway, are natives of Sussex county, Virginia, 
where they were married December 22d, 1822. In the year 1829, 
they removed to Vicksburg, where they still reside. For many 
years anterior to the war, Mr. Randolph, Sr., held tlie office of 
Assessor and Collector of Taxes, and since the war that of Mayor. 

The boyhood of young Randolph was spent in Vicksburg, 
and there he received his early education. In 1857 he entered 
the University of Virginia, where he was still a student when 
hostilities commenced. He had graduated in the school of Moral 
Philosophy and in Junior Law, and by his genial ami kind dis- 
position, his intelligence, and his high sense of honor, he had 
made for himself a name that is still remembered by his j)recep- 
tors and a large circle of college friends. 

Before it was publicly known that the State of Virginia had 
passed her Ordinance of Secession, volunteer troops were hurried 
forward to Harper's Ferry to secure that place and the valuable 
arsenal located tiiere. Among those troops were two companies 
from the University of Virginia, and two from the town of Char- 
lottesville, which, moving together, and being composed of men 
and officers well acquainted M'ith each other, w^ere subsequently 
organized into a battalion under Colonel G. AV. Carr, an old army 
officer, and became fast friends during that short campaign. 
Young Randolph went as a private in one of the University 
companies, and remained with his command until it returned and 
was disbanded. Very soon after this, troops began to move for- 
ward to Manassas. The young men who had composed the Uni- 
versity companies returned to their respective homes to assume, in 
volunteer companies, the commissions to which they were so well 
entitled by their intelligence and proficiency in military tactics. 
Randolph might have followed their example by returning to 
his home in Mississippi, and there securing, as he could easily 
have done, a commission in some of the regiments of that State. 
Tile idea no doubt frequently occurred to him, but it received not 
the sanction of his ardent patriotism. It was a long way from 
Virginia to Mississippi ; the trip thither and back, witli the delay 
attending the organization of new regiments, would probably delay 
his entering service until the coming fall or winter. He was 
already in Virginia ; her soil was reverberating to the tramp of 



1802 ] 



THE UNTVEESITY MEMORIAL. 273 



armed legions of Northern soldiers who were hurrying across 
lier borders; here in Virginia, and that at an early hour, was 
the first great battle to be waged between the contending armies. 
Randolph did not hesitate a moment. He at once shouldered 
his musket, slung his knapsack, and started for Culpeper Court 
House, to enlist as a private in Captain Mallory's Company from 
Charlottesville, afterwards well known and distinguished as Com- 
pany A of the 19th Virginia Infantry, in which he had many 
friends amongst the officers and men. 

From Culpeper his regiment moved to Manassas; and while 
encamped there, preceding the battle, it was brigaded with the 18th 
and 28th Virginia regiments, under the command of Brigadier- 
General Philip St. George Cocke. General Cocke requiring an 
aide, Private Randolph was suggested for the place, to which he 
was appointed, and upon the duties of which he immediately 
entered. While acting as aide to General Cocke, the battle of 
Manassas was fought, and it was during the height and uncertain 
issue of that battle that Lieutenant Randolph rendered such 
valuable assistance to General Beauregard that the General made 
honorable mention of him in his official report. 

The position of Lieutenant Randolph on General Cocke's staff 
was in some respects an unpleasant one. Being simply detailed 
as aide, and holding no commission, the other members of the staff 
were inclined to put such services upon him as he did not think 
consistent with the position he was occupying. Something of the 
kind happening one morning, Randolph's spirit was aroused, 
and he asked to be permitted to return to his regiment rather than 
submit to such indignities. Xo apology or remonstrance could 
avail ; Randolph quitted " headquarters," and became again a 
private in Company A, and remained with his command until he 
was killed. 

The writer w;5S with Randolph during the early part of the 
war, and had every opportunity of forming an estimate of his 
services in the field and his de^^ortment in camp. There was no 
member of that regiment who more faithfully discharged his 
duties, none more beloved of all than he. In the very hottest of 
battle he was cool and determined. At Williamsburg, in the midst 
of a terrible musketry fire. Private Jarman, of Captain Winn's 
Company, from Albemarle (whose position was next in line on the 
right of Company A), found that his musket had become unser- 
18 



274 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[September, 



viceable from the lieat resulting from its repeated discharges. 
Randolph and Jarraan attempted to remedy the evil, and in the 
effort both their muskets Avere disabled. Captain Carter, than 
whom a better officer never lived, told the writer that in passing 
along his Company line he came across Jarman and Randolph 
lying behind a small log, laughing immoderately at their disabled 
condition, as though utterly indifferent to the hail of balls that 
was falling around them. Very soon the line was ordered to 
charge the enemy (Sickles's Excelsior Brigade) and take a bat- 
tery that had annoyed our troops. The brigade charged and 
carried the battery. Alexander Hoffman and Randolph, both 
of Company A, were the first to reach it; and passing around the 
guns, one on the left and the other on the right side, they met, 
shook hands, and gave a rousing cheer for the 19th Regiment. At 
that moment Hoffman was shot, and while being carried l)y Ran- 
dolph to the rear, he died before he had been moved a dozen 
paces. 

At the battle of Seven Pines Captain Culin was very badly 
wounded, and Randolph carried him from the field under a hot 
fire, and saw him safely in the Richmond hospital. Wearied out 
and sick, he was himself then sent to Charlottesville to recover his 
health. His absence prevented his participating in the Seven 
Days' fight around Richmond. He rejoined his command at 
Gordonsville in June, while it was on the march to Maryland, 
and was actively engaged in all the battles of that campaign. 
While the army was lying at Hagerstown, Randolph, who had 
then been made Sergeant of his Company, was very frequently at 
the quarters of the writer; and though always unwavering in his 
devotion to the cause for which we were struggling, he had begun 
justly to complain of the disappointments he had suffered in not 
receiving a commission, to which he thought himself so fully 
entitled, while young and inexperienced men were being put on 
commission through the influence of friends in high quarters. He 
very properly thought that if he had gone to Mississippi instead 
of joining a Virginia regiment as only a private, he would long 
before have received his commission. The very morning of the 
battle of Boonsboro' Gap, in which he was killed, he had prepared 
a letter of application to the Secretary of War, asking for promo- 
tion. That letter was never sent, and was probably buried with 
him on the field of battle. 



^gcs] THE UKIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 275 

The array moved forward towards South Mountain, on a rapid 
march from Hagerstown, to seize the gaps and prevent McClellan 
from crossing his troops. The march was a long and fatiguing 
one : our troops were badly shod, and suffered much from the 
gravelled roads they traversed : Randolph was nearly destitute 
of shoes, and as a last resort he had put on a pair of thin low- 
quarter shoes (the remaining vestige of better times at College). 
He became so lame from the march that the Surgeon ordered him 
into an ambulance. Just before the battle. Sergeant Perley, who 
had completely broken down and was sick, was brought to the 
ambulance in which Randolph lay, and a place sought for him. 
The ambulance was too crow<led to admit him, but, with a spirit 
of self-sacrifice that ever characterized him. Sergeant Randolph 
gave Perley his place, took Perley's musket, and fell into the 
ranks with his comrades. In less than an hour he lay dead on 
the field of battle. 

The brigade had reached the summit of the mountain, and was 
hurrying by the right flank to the support of Kemper's Brigade. 
As it moved across an open field the enemy's batteries heavily 
shelled it ; a fragment of shell struck Sergeant Randolph in 
the mouth, and he fell dead. His comrades had not a moment to 
stop to look to him, but many a one, as he passed hira lying- 
dead there, exclaimed in feelings of tenderest sympathy, " Poor 
Tom Randolph, the best and bravest of our regiment, is gone at 
last ! " 

His remains were never recovered. Our troops were too hotly 
engaged to the very moment of retreat to be able to look after the 
dead and wounded. And Tom Randolph, and many others of 
the bravest and truest men of the 19th Virginia Infantry, were 
left dead and wounded, to be cared for and buried by the Federal 
army. 



NIMROD BRANHAM HAMNER, 

Private, Company B, 19th Virginia Infantry. 

Dr. Wyatt AV. Hamner was born in Appomattox county, Vir- 
ginia, October 16th, 1818. In 1841 he graduated in Medicine at 



276 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [September, 

the University of Virginia, and soon after was married to Jane 
M., daughter of Nimrod Branhara, Esq., whose residence was in 
sight of the University. Nimeod Branham Hamxer, the second 
son of this marriage, was born at his grandfather's on the 16th of 
August, 1844. 

He showed when a child an analytical turn of mind, and always 
destroyed his playthings, pulling them to pieces to see how they 
were "made. In his fifth year he was put under the charge of his 
uncle, Rev. John C. Hamner, then a teacher in Appomattox 
county, and before he was twelve he began the study of Latin. 
In 1858 Dr. Hamner removed to the University and took charge 
of one of the college hotels ; and " B." (as he was familiarly called) 
was allowed to matriculate as a student when he was only four- 
teen, that he might remain with his parents. Of course he could 
take nothing but thejunior classes; yet in his second session he was 
distinguished at both examinations of the senior Latin class, and 
the year after he received di2)lomas in Latin and French, and dis- 
tinctions on the intermediate course of Mathematics. 

In the spring of 1861 — just at the time when he was beginning 
to study most profitably — he joined the " University Volunteers," 
under Captain Crane, and set out for the Kanawha Valley to do 
service with the Wise Legion. 

It was not the sheer recklessness of youth, nor the simple fire 
of his age, that led him from the quiet shades of college and from 
the home of his parents. It was the sense of duty that changed 
the student into a soldier. From Gauley Bridge he wrote to his 
mother : — " Do not think I have forgotten you. Often at night, 
M'hen I pace to and fro my lonely sentinel's path, my thoughts 
irresistibly wander to my dear home, and dwell at last on those I 
love best. And when I lie down at night, it is to think of them. 
But however pleasant it might be to return home, or stay there, 
no true Virginian, whatever his age, would consent to be inactive 
when the soil of his native State is invaded." 

On the eve of starting off with his company, he went to Char- 
lottesville to get his uniform, which had been previously ordered. 
A package marked " B. Hamner " was handed him, and he pro- 
ceeded at once to invest himself with the army dress. But he had 
no sooner done so than he discovered something was wrong. He 
was tall and spare, while the uniform was evidently for a person 
of low and stout build. A pleasant conversation followed, dis- 



j8(;j_] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOKIAL. 277 

closing the fact, scarce noticed by the tailor until then, that two 
suits had been prepared and laid aside with the same label, the 
initial standing in one case for " Branham," in the other for " Ben- 
jamin ; " and the owners, unknown to each other, were members 
of the same company. The next day the two Hamners met and 
became acquainted, found that they were distantly related, and 
formed an attachment for each other which, moulding the life of 
each, was terminated only in death. 

On the 4th of July the University Volunteers started for Wes- 
tern A^irginia. There " B." remained, enduring the hard service 
of that campaign until the following November, when he was 
discharged on account of ill-health, and returned home. Re-en- 
tering the University during the same month, he betook himself 
to his studies again, and graduated at the intermediate examination 
on Senior Mathematics. 

But the heart of the young man was not at ease ; the sound of 
hostile feet, lately familiar to him, were reproduced in his ear, and 
in the quiet of his student life he seemed to hear still the voices 
of his comrades in their distant camps. He was longing for the 
field again, and chafing under the restraint, he became silent and 
dejected. Extracts from his diary indicate clearly his state of 
mind : — 

" April 20th, 1862. Had a long talk with Pa to-day about 
going into service again. He made no positive objection, but 
advised me not to go; which advice, however, I think I must dis- 
regard. I may be killed, I may be wounded, I may die in the 
hospital, I may go through the war alive, yet I must go into the 
service. True, I am not eighteen ; true, I am not perfectly healthy, 
and true, a good many things. But I see no pleasure at home 
now, when my country is invaded. I cannot study, and all my 
acquaintances are in the army." 

, His old company had some time since been disbanded, after 
being reduced to eleven ; and Ben Hamner, now become his bosom 
friend, had joined Company B, 19th Virginia Regiment, Colonel 
John B. Strange, while the Army of Northern Virginia Avas in 
camp at Orange C. II., in the month of March, just previous to 
its march to Yorktown. In the battle of Williamsburg, on the 
5th of May, he was shot in the head and killed instantly while 
charging the enemy. The following impassioned words, taken 
from the private diary of " B.," are a fitting tribute now to both 
the dead : — 



278 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. [SLptcmbcr, 

" In the death of Ben Hamner the Church has lost one of its 
greatest ornaments, the South one of her bravest soldiers, Mrs. 
Haraner one of the best of sons, and I the best friend on earth. 
Ben, my dear Ben, my best friend, is gone — gone forever; no 
more shall I meet him here. But we shall meet in heaven ; yes, 
we shall meet there." 

The close of Ben's life was the turning point of " B.s" Going 
to his father, he said, " Pa, / must go into the service. Ben has 
fallen and his place is vacant. I will take his place and avenge 
his fall." On the 2d of June he went to Richmond and joined 
Company B, 19th Virginia Regiment, Pickett's Division, and was 
in time for the battles that were to be fought so soon afterwards 
around that city. From this time until his death he participated 
in all the engagements of his regiment. Writing of one of those 
around Richmond, he says : — " When Colonel Strange brought us 
off, there were only six men in the regiment with him. He took 
down our names. I rode off the battle-field that night behind tlie 
color-sergeant." But the soldier, flushed with victory and telling 
of the triumphs in which he had borne an honorable part, had not 
forgotten the student ; and the student who sits at the feet of a Pro- 
fessor and learns to reverence him as such, will ever after be proud 
to do him honor. And so, as though his heart rebuked his delay 
to speak of that old Roman, his teacher of Latin — nobler than 
they whose tongue he taught — " B " adds : — " I forgot to state that 
on Monday I was with Professor Coleman in the thickest of the 
fight. He acted nohlyJ^ Many eulogies have been pronounced 
upon Colonel Lewis M. Coleman, but not many would have been 
valued more by him than those simple words of the Christian boy 
who had learned at his feet in times of peace, and who was now 
coming first to the altar of his country to lay down his life. 

The writer has called young Hamner a Christian ; and this 
he has done not without reason and purpose. In a conversation 
with his father several years since, many interesting facts in con- 
nection with his searching for and finding the pearl of great price, 
were brought out in detail. Bat the recollection of these is now 
confused, and Dr. Hamner himself, stricken with paralysis soon 
after the war closed, has passed away since the preparation of this 
work was begun. The evidences of Lis conversion were clear, 
and his life was in keeping with his profession. Among the last 
words in his diary, which he sealed up and gave to his mother 



i8]:.i 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 279 



when he left for Richmond, with the request it should not be 
opened unless he was killed, are these : — " I know I will be subject 
to many and very trying temptations in camp, but with God's 
assistance I hope to withstand them. I must, I will .... for 
my Saviour's sake I will never desert the banner I have chosen." 

From Richmond to Boonsboro' he shared the fortunes of the 
19th Virginia. With it he made the severe march from Hagers- 
town to Boonsboro', or Turner's Gap, in the South Mountain. 
When the battle was over, and the troops withdrew during the 
niffht, he was not found amono; them. A letter written home 
shortly afterwards by his brother, W^illiam P. Plamner, said : — " I 
have not been able to hear anything definite from ' B.' He was 
very much complaining when we started on the march that morn- 
ing, and did not keep up with us. But before we went into the 
fiffht, he g;ot out of the ambulance and overtook us as we were 
going in ; got a musket from some of the wounded who were 
coming out, borrowed cartridges from different members of the 
company, and would go with us. Lieutenant Shepherd and my- 
self tried our best to get him to remain, but all in vain." 

Nothino- more was heard for a considerable time, and the 
anxious parents continued to hope for their boy, until one of his 
classmates, a son of Colonel J. Lucius Davis, of Richmond, sent 
them the following message — " He had met ' B.' in the thickest of 
the fight at Boonsboro'. He seemed very glad to see him, but 
said he had no time to talk then. Just as they separated, he was 
struck by a shell and killed instantly." 

He had not, perhaps, a soldier's burial, but he is enshrined in 
the hearts of his countrymen. No martial cloak was thrown 
about him, but — he ivas wrapped in the " robe of righteousness." 



Dr. THOMAS NEWTON, 

Private, Company E, 6th Virgiuia Infantry. 

Dr. Thomas Newton belonged to one of the oldest families of 
Viri'-inia. He was the eldest sou of George and Courtenave T 
Newton, and was bora in Norfolk, February 2, 1810. Alter the 
usual preliminary education, he entered the University of Vir- 



280 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [September, 

ginia in the fall of 1834, and during that session pursued the study 
of Ancient and Modern Languages, and Mathematics. Gessner 
Harrison, the successor of George Long as Professor of Ancient 
Languages, had then but fairly started on his great career as a 
philologian ; and George Blaettermann and Charles Bonnycastle 
occupied, respectively, the chairs of Modern Languages and Math- 
ematics. The following year Mr. Newton returned and took up 
the study of Medicine, under Professors Emmet, Magill, and 
Warner. From the University he went to the Pennsylvania 
Medical College at Philadelphia, where in 1837 he was graduated 
Doctor of Medicine. 

He then made a visit to Europe, and spent two years there in 
prosecuting the study of his profession at Paris and in visiting 
places of interest on the Continent. Returning to America, he 
located in Philadelphia, where he had made many friends, and 
commenced the practice of medicine. He did not, however, con- 
tinue his residence in that city long ; impelled by the love of 
home, which probably distinguishes Virginians from other Amer- 
icans, he returned after three years to Norfolk, where, in the pos- 
session of an ample fortune^ he lived quietly, practicing only 
among the poor. 

Dr. Neavton was a warm advocate of the old Union, and he, 
in common Avith the majority of the gentlemen of Virginia, ear- 
nestly desired to preserve it, if it could be done consistently with 
the honor and welfare of the State. But when all efforts in that 
direction failed, ho gave his whole heart to the cause of Virginia 
and approved of the act of secession. 

He entered the military service in April, 1861, as volunteer 
A. D. C. to General Gwynn, who was then in command of the 
city of Norfolk, and in that capacity he was present at the bom- 
bardment of Sewell's Point. Upon the removal of General 
Gwynn he retired from the service. Soon afterwards, however, 
he Avas appointed Surgeon to the 6th Virginia Infantry, then sta- 
tioned at the " Entrenched Camp," near Norfolk. After serving 
in that position for some time, and gaining the confidence of both 
officers and men in the regiment, a general order was issued 
Avhich he considered unjust, and in consequence of which he re- 
signed his commission and returned home. 

In March, 1862, he enlisted as a private in the regiment whicii 
he had served as Surgeon. Few men have given higher proof of 



lS,i2-| THE UKIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 281 

their patriotism than did Dr. Newton by this single act: — he 
was beyond the age which renders one liable to military duty ; 
his tastes had led him to retire, long ago, from public life; he 
owned a palatial residence and a handsome patrimonial estate, 
which, in case of necessity, he could have used the influence of 
Northern men to protect ; moved by the simple love of country, 
under whose power he forgot the unjust discrimination of the 
Government against him as an officer, he left his home and his 
family and volunteered as a common soldier for the defence of his 
native land. 

Upon the evacuation of Norfolk in the following May, the 6th 
Virginia moved to Petersburg, and thence to the neighborhood of 
Richmond, about the time of the first great battles around that 
city. At Malvern Hill the regiment Avas engaged and suffered 
severely. A few days after this battle it was stationed on James 
River to support the batteries of Drury's Bluff, and remained 
there until about the middle of August. During this period there 
was much sickness in the regiment; the Assistant-Surgeon died, 
the Surgeon left from disease, and the men were without medical 
attention. At the solicitation of the Colonel, Dr. Newton con- 
sented to act as Surgeon, but with the condition that he should 
resume his musket when the regiment went into the field. Many 
efforts were made to induce him to apply for the office which he 
had resigned; he was told it should be offered to him without his 
asking for it, if he would consent to accept it; but he persistently 
declined, saying that he had come to fight and not to practice 
medicine. 

Wiien Plahone's Brigade moved to Northern Virginia to aid in 
repelling Pope's advance, he took his place in the ranks again, and 
fought with his company at the second battle of -Manassas. He 
shared the fatigues and dangers of the campaign into Maryland 
which followed after that great Confedei-ate victory, and in the 
double battle of South Mountain — Turner's Gap or Boonsboro', 
and Crampton's Gap — his regiment being engaged at the latter 
place, he received a wound which ultimately proved fatal. 

Along with several hundred others he fell into the hands of the 
enemy; but, being recognized by a General Officer of the Federal 
army as a valued friend of former days, he Avas at once paroled 
and removed to a neighboring farm-house, whither his family was 
summoned from Norfolk to attend him. Under their tender min- 



282 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [November. 

istry, and with every want supplied by kind Maryland friends, he 
passed six months' — months of terrible suifering, notwithstanding 
the kindness lavished upon liim — which ended on the 13th of 
March in a death of peace and hope. 

His remains were taken immediately to Norfolk for burial. 
That city was then under Federal authority, and, in obedience to 
the request of the General Commanding, no notice of his funeral 
was given by his friends. But the citizens were subjugated in 
person only; astonished and indignant at the evacuation of Nor- 
folk, they had not ceased to deprecate the seeming necessity which 
dictated their surrender. Their hearts were with the Confederacy 
and the noble men who fought for it. Alone they prayed for it, 
together they communed about its successes and reverses. And 
so, without public notification, they knew of Dr. Newton's 
funeral, and unbidden, they went to it by thousands, thus quietly 
testifying their respect for him as a citizen and their admiration of 
his unassuming heroism as a soldier. 



CHAELES OGILVIE YOUNG, Jr., 

Private, Company B, SOtti Virginia Infantry. 

The county of Spottsylvania — always noted for the intelligence 
and hospitality of its citizens — was rendered historic by the 
events of the war. Four times did the surging hostile hosts 
gather to battle within its limits: to Fredericksburg, with his 
proud legions Burnside came; to Chancellorsville, Hooker; and to 
the Wilderness and the Court-House, Grant, to wrestle with Lee 
and to turn back the dial of the ages. Four times did victory 
perch upon the standards of the South, but the shouts of triumph 
scarce anticij^ated the quickly following wails for the heroic men 
whom the country could ill afford to lose. There fell Cobb, Cole- 
man, and Gregg ; Jackson, Paxton, and Davidson ; Jones, Jenkins, 
and Brown, Watson and Biseoe, and a thousand others, noble all, 
for whom a thousand hearts are broken still. 

Its name, reminding no longer of its woodland slopes and 
tangled jungles, speaks eloquently, but sadly, of the shades of 
those who, having yielded up their lives on those fiery fields, now 



isca. 



THE UKIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 283 



sleep, shrouded in glory, upon the soil which their blood made 
sacred. It will be sung in story, it will be perpetuated in history, 
it will be invested in the purple colors of romance; but until the 
present generation shall have passed aM^ay, and their sorrows rest 
with them in the grave, that name will fall upon many an ear 
with a sad, funereal sound, summoning their thoughts away to the 
place 

" Where heaves the turf iu uiaDy a mouldering heap." 

But the good old county is not worthy of mention merely because 
it is historic ground. It is indeed something to have been the 
scene of four great acts in this great drama, and to have borne 
the sacrifices necessitated by this fact; to have had its shattered 
forests cut away until the native did not know his familiar patli, 
its growing fields ravaged and the garnered grain consumed by 
friend and foe until almost literally nothing remained; its hills 
and valleys studded thickly here and there with graves, until the 
Avhole might be fitly compared to one vast burying-ground. But 
if, in sacrifices like these, this section of the Commonwealth was 
distinguished above almost any other, it had also its full share in 
that loss which the country now feels most keenly — the loss of its 
educated young men. 

Taking up at random a catalogue of the University showing 
the number of students of a single session, the writer found the 
names of twelve from Spottsylvania. The average yearly attend- 
ance, thus suggested, is probably a fair one, and justifies the 
reader in inferring — what was strictly true — that in the county 
there was no paucity of intellectual and cultivated men. It need 
not be said that these were not indifferent to the great question 
M'hich the country referred to the arbitrament^ of the sword. 
" Noble in their ire," they espoused at once the cause of Virginia 
and the South, and went forth into the struggle. 

It was not expected they would all return ; and among those 
who came not back Avas the subject of this poor tribute. 

Charles Ogilvie Young, Jr., was born in the county of 
Spottsylvania, November 8th, 1836. His family belongs to that 
class which Inspiration and Phibx^ophy alike declare the haj)j)icst, 
and wiiich, as a rule, supplies the world with efiicient brain-power. 
His father, Charles O. Young, Sr., was of immediate Scotch des- 
cent, and illustrated in his life many of the finest traits of the 



284 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [Xcvember, 

best type of Scotchmen. With a certain brusquerie of manner 
and curtness of expression which lent emphasis to his words and 
kept liis hearers always in a state of expectancy, he combined those 
sterling qualities of mind and heart that give force of character. 
He was a man whose integrity the people never questioned, and 
in whose excellent ludg-ment his neighbors had the utmost confi- 
dence. His views on most subjects were sharply defined and as 
sharply expressed ; and yet there was probably no one in the 
community whose opinion carried more weight or whose approval 
gave more satisfaction. With ample means to carry out his liberal 
views of education, he sent his sons, as they grew up, first to high 
schools and then to the University. 

His mother, Mrs. Lucinda Young, was a daughter of the Rev. 
John A. Billingsley, whose biography may be found in the Vir- 
ginia Baptist Ministers, and whose memory is still beloved and 
revered by the generation now passing away. Inheriting from 
him much of his strength of character, she followed him also in 
the constancy and beauty of her Cbristian life, the power of which, 
it is believed, was felt by her husband ; for in his advanced years, 
but not until her life was rounded with sleep, he publicly con- 
fessed the truth of Christianity and submitted to the ordinances 
of the Gospel. 

Charles Young, Jr., was the third child of his parents. 
Under their directing care he passed the years of his childhood 
and youth, going to school on the week-days, as soon as he was 
old enough, and fishing or skating at his father's mill, or roaming 
over his plantation in quest of game, on Saturdays and holidays. 
Going to school was no cross to him ; for while he was in full 
sympathy with nature, and enjoyed the freshness and buoyancy 
of country life, he was still more in love with books. When he 
was about thirteen years of age he was sent to Mr. John Hart, who 
having then just taken the Master's Degree at the University, 
established a classical school for boys in Mr. Young's neighbor- 
hood. Mr. Hart, now Principal of the Albemarle Female Insti- 
tute, has been engaged in teaching for twenty years. The follow- 
ing from his pen will show how high an estimate he put upon his 
pupil's abilities, and how lasting an impression his character 
made upon him : — 

" Of the forms and faces that rise to view when I recall the 
early years of my career as a teacher, none are more distinct than 



1332.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 285 

Charles Young's. A slender, pale-faoed, blue-eyed, white- 
haired lad of thirteen, he entered the school with much of that 
mixture of modesty and confidence which often characterizes the 
mind of more than common power and refinement of sensibility. 
Diligence, in the true sense of the word, marked his entire four 
years' course with me. He worked not merely because his tasks 
were set him and he was ashamed to show deficiency, but he 
worked because he loved tlie work. Thus while he enjoyed the 
sports of a holiday with as keen a relish as any, he never availed 
himself of the slight pretexts for neglect of school-work that 
easily satisfy so many. His teacher always felt sure that, what- 
ever might be true of others, Chahles Young's exercises would 
be handed in at the appointed time, and his lessons would be 
ready when his class was called. This diligence, united with his 
talents, secured for him a steady progress in his studies equal to 
that of any other boy I have taught. Other boys I have known 
to learn more rapidly, more brilliantly perhaps, and more fitfully. 
The leading characteristics of Young's mind were steadiness and 
accuracy, with a general neatness of action, reminding me much 
of the mental habits of the lamented Willoughby Tcbbs. He 
could be relied on. If his teacher did not always get from him a 
fully satisfactory answer to a question, on the other hand he 
never got a wild one. It could be seen that he was working 
around the matter, and in such a way as to raise the expectation 
that soon he would work through it. 

" I do not think it can be said that he had peculiar abilities in 
one direction rather than another, at least within the range of the 
subjects studied with me. I believe he might have achieved dis- 
tinction in any of the callings of life, scientific, professional, or 
practical. 

" On the moral side of his character. Young was a boy to be 
admired and imitated. In truthfulness, manliness, regard for 
the rights of others, and a quiet dignity of bearing, I have not 
known his superior. Regardful of the rights of others, he was 
jealous of his own; never allowing himself to bully a smaller 
boy, neither did he allow himself to be bullied by a larger one. 
He carried into the service of his country the same calm and self- 
poised spirit, the same steady and unflinching courage, that had 
been conspicuous in his boyhood. A truthful, modest, manly 
boyhood never expanded into a truer, braver, nobler manhood." 



286 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [November, 

It was at this school that the writer first knew Charles 
Young, and he can truly say that his teacher did not hold him 
in higher esteem than did his associates in the class-room. His 
character, Avhich is most difficult to portray, won alike and at 
once upon all. His ability and industry as a student commanded 
their respect; his manly bearing, free from pretentiousness or 
aifectation, provoked their admiration; while his good fellowship 
in play-hours made him a general favorite. His popularity was 
increasea by liis blunt, caustic wit, which, however, carried no 
malice with it. It is not remembered that he ever had a quarrel 
of his own provoking, but if one were pressed upon him lie did 
not shrink from it. He possessed in a wonderful degree what 
may be called irony of manner , but this he kept as a sort of reserve 
force. If a boy misbehaved, he would ignore him, sometimes for 
days ; and he who had once undergone such a punishment, silent 
but sharp and severe, was usually careful not to provoke its 'repe- 
tition. 

From this school Young went in October, 1854, to the Univer- 
sity of Virginia, whither several of his school-fellows had preceded 
him. It was his father's wish that he should pursue leisurely and 
thoroughly the full academic course. In pursuance of this plan 
he spent four years there, taking always a good ticket, and always 
maintaining the reputation of a talented student. His room-mates 
during these successive years were all brothers ; first, Wilson S. 
Newman, who gave np his life at Winchester, in 1864; then 
Richard H. Newman, who died soon after leaving college; and 
lastly, J. Stanley Newman, at present engaged in teaching in the 
South. 

For several sessions the writer was again intimately associated 
with Young at college. Belonging as we did to families closely 
connected, though not akin, coming from the same school and 
county, knowing the same home-people, pursuing the same studies, 
and above all, entertaining for each other a mutual regard and 
aflfection, our intercourse, as was natural, was as free and our con- 
versation as unguarded as that of brothers. Almogt no day passed 
that one of us was not in the other's room. We often studied 
together, in several clashes we sat side by side throughout the ses- 
sion ; we walked together, and together went frequently to chajjel 
and church. In all the relations of student-life we were closely 
drawn together : and of the large acquaintance I then had at the 



jg,;2^ THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 287 

University, there was no one whose character grew more upon me, 
no one whose respect I would have more gladly possessed, no one 
by whose friendship I would have felt myself more honored. 

At the session of 1858-59 Charles Youxg was a candidate 
for the degree of Master of Arts, having already graduated on all 
the schools requisite for it except Chemistry and Moral Philo- 
sophy. These, it is well known, present little difficulty to a good 
student who is not pressed with other M'ork. At the intermediate 
examinations lie passed satisfactorily on these two subjects, and 
would without doubt have received diplomas on them if he had 
continued in his classes until the end of the session. But in the 
review-examinations, which as a candidate for the highest degree 
he was required to stand, he believed himself to be unjustly 
treated either by the Faculty or by some member of it, and conse- 
quently he withdrew at once from the University and went to his 
home in Spottsylvania. 

Mention has been made of his room-mates. These were the 
sons of James Newman, Esq., of Orange county. It would be 
difficult to say which one of the three had the highest appreciation 
of Young's character and abilities. They concurred in recom- 
mending him to their father, and that gentleman engaged'him to 
prepare his younger sons for college. For nearly two years he 
lived in Mr. Newman's family, and won upon the father as he had 
done upon the sons. In a letter now before me, and dated " Hil- 
ton, January 20th, 1870," Mr. Newman thus speaks of him: — 
"During his residence with me, I found Mr. YouxG eminently 
worthy of the high encomiums bestowed by his old school-fellows. 
High-toned, modest, and unassuming, with a high order of talent 
and a mind vigorous and cultivated, energetic and conscientious, 
he sntirely won ray confidence, and I became attajched to him as 
a friend and as an admirer of his frankness and nobleness of char- 
acter. I have ever regarded him as a young gentleman of high 
promise, destined to attain a high position in society and in the 
confidence of his countrymen. His brief career of usefulness has 
been permanently arrested, along with many of his noblest friends; 
l)ut he md they are spared the jjain of witnessing the oppression 
and humiliation of their country, in whose defence they gallantly 
offered up their youthful lives," 

On the 15th of November, 1860, while still teaching at Mr. 
Newman's, he was married to Mary Champe, daughter of Henry 



288 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [{lovember, 

Willis, Esq., of Orange county. Before, however, the academic 
session expired, war was upon us, and Charles Young at once 
entered the service. 

On the 11th of July, 1861, he volunteered as a private in Com- 
pany B, Captain R. S. Chew, of the 30th Virginia Infantry, 
Colonel R. Milton Carey commanding. The regiment was sta- 
tioned at Acquia Creek, on the Potomac, until February 1862. 
When the first battle of Manassas was fought, it made a forced 
march to that place on Sunday, but arrived too late to take part 
in the action. 

From Acquia Creek the 30th Virginia moved with Holmes's 
brigade to Goldsboro', N. C, and soon afterwards General Holmes 
was appointed to the command of the department of North Caro- 
lina. Charles Young was then detailed as clerk at headquar- 
ters. When Holmes was ti-ansferred to the Trans-Mississippi 
department, and D. H. Hill succeeded him. Young continued 
with General Hill in the same capacity. 

When, however, his regiment went to battle, he took up his 
musket and went with it. On the way to Maryland, after the 
Richmond battles, he marched by the home of his childhood and 
spent ofie night v.'ith his parents. He had not seen tliem for seven 
months : he never saw them again ! Thence he went on to Albe- 
marle, whither his wife had fled from the threats of Pope, and 
spent a single night with her and the little girl, whom, in honor 
of both parents, they had named Mary Ogilvie. It was the sec- 
ond and last time he saw his child. His wife urged him to 
remain, if only a single day, with her, but he said, "No: it was 
his duty to go on, and he was willing to endure separation and hard- 
ship if he might only return and enjoy the blessings of peace." 

No man, perhaps, during all the war, exhibited a nobler jmtriot- 
ism than did he in this instance. The life of a soldier was utterly 
distasteful to him : he was devoted to his little family ; men Avere 
taking advantage constantly of the movement of the troops to absent 
themselves from their commands, and he might have done so with 
the utmost impunity. But it would have been out of character 
for him to do this, and he could not entertain the thought. 

After the battle of Sharpsburg he was stricken with disease 
which terminated in typhoid fever. He started home, but only 
reached Winchester, where for nearly three weeks he was delirious, 
and without a friend who knew him. His wife and brother 



jggo.j THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 289 

finally found him, and every appliance was used for his recovery, 
hut in vain. lie lived two weeks longer, and in his last days was 
perfectly rational. He died on the 2d of November, 1862, and, 
as is said, with a peaceful trust in the Son of God. He had never 
lacked but this one thing — Christianity. 

Thus, in an humble sphere, which his own worth was sufficient 
to dignify, passed away one of the flower of the Southern race. 
It was many weeks, perhaps months, ere the tidings of his death 
reached me. Even then the news came too soon, with its heavy 
grief, the weight of which is not yet gone. ■ Thinking to keep his 
name a household word and to put honor on my little daughter, I 
called her Alice Ogilvie ; but she, bright cherub, bright and beau- 
tiful as "my gentle peer" whose name she bore, snatched away 
like him ere half enough of her Avas seen, left our home deso- 
late indeed. Henceforth that name, like a two-edged sword, 
pierces the heart with a double sorrow: — a Christian ought rather 
to say, with a two-fold cord it draws the soul to God. 



DAVID R. BARTON. 

Lieutenant, Cutshaw's Battery, 

The blood of one of the greatest of American jurists and of 
one of the profoundest of American philosophers meets in the 
veins of the soldier whose life it is the purpose of the present 
writing to commemorate ; a life which many of the best virtues 
too of John Marshall and David Rittenhouse combined to illus- 
trate. 

David Rittenhouse Barton was born in Winchester, Vir- 
ginia, on the 27th September, 1837. His father, David Walker 
Barton, who died in July, 1863, was for thirty-five years senior 
partner of the well-known law firm of Barton & Williams. He 
was the youngest and last surviving child of Richard P. Barton 
of Frederick County, and grandson of the Rev. Thomas Barton, 
a clergyman of the English Church, who settled in Pennsylvania 
and married a sister of the celebrated David Rittenhouse, of Phil- 
adelphia. The Rev. Thomas Barton was a native of Monaghan 
County, Ireland, whither his ancestors had removed from England 
19 



290 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. [December, 

during the persecution of the Royalists in Cromwell's time. He 
was a graduate of the University of Dublin. The mother of the 
subject of this notice, who still survives, was the second child of 
Wm. Strother Jones, Senior, of Vaucluse, in the County of Fred- 
erick. Her mother was a daughter of Charles Marshall, of Fau- 
quier, brother to the Chief Justice. Her paternal grandfather was 
a captain in the Revolution of 1776, and son to Gabriel Jones, 
an eminent lawyer of Rockingham.* 

David's earlier school days were spent at the time-honored 
Winchester Academy. At the age of seventeen he was thence 
transferred for two sessions to the Episcopal High School of Vir- 
ginia, near Alexandria, then under the rectorship of the Rev. John 
P. McGuire. During his second session here he became a com- 
municant o'f the Cliurch. 

In October, 1856, he entered the University of Virginia. 
After pursuing his studies there without interruption for two 
years he spent a session teaching near Baltimore, in the family of 
J. T. B. Dorsey, Esq., a son-in-law of Senator Mason, of Vir- 
ginia. Returning to the University in 1859, the opening of the 
Avar found him in the midst of his fourth session. Though 
prevented from standing the final examinations of 1861, the 
degrees he had previously attained in Mathematics, Natural 
Philosophy, Moral Philosophy and Latin satisfactorily attest his 
fidelity as a student. The sterling qualities that had marked him 
at school were equally conspicuous at college. As a Christian he 
was devout and consistent, and, as a zealous member of the Chris-' 
tian Association, was ever disposed as best he could to advance the 
cause of religion. He was also a member of the "Washington Lite- 
rary Society — at onetime Magazine Editor in its behalf, — of the 
Epsilon Alpha Fraternity, and of the " Southern Guard " (Cap- 
tain E. S. Hutter, of Lynchburg), a military company of students. 
With the Southern Guard he went a few days after the Secession 
of Virginia to Harper's Ferry, where he remained throughout 
the short period of service required of that organization. 

In June, 1861, he became a member of the Rockbridge Artillery, 
then commanded by Captain (afterwards Brigadier-General) Wm. 
N. Pendleton, D. D., and attached to the Stonewall (Jackson's) 

* The bereavements sustained hy this lady since the beginning of the war are 
grievous indeed, and well deserve the sympathy which has been so widely felt for 
her. Three sons, a brother (Major Frank B. Jones, 2d Virginia Infantrj ) and a son- 
in-law (Colonel Thomas Marshall, 7th Virginia Cavalry) have fallen inbaUle; while 
her husband, three grown daughters, an adopted daughter and another son-in-law 
have died of disease. 



jg^,2_-j THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 291 

Brigade. Its subsequent commanders were Captain (afterwards 
Lieutenant-Colonel) Wm. McLaughlin, Captain (afterwards Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel) Wm. T. Poague and Captain Archibald Graham. 
There was not probably in the service any company more justly 
celebrated than the Rockbridge Artillery. Nearly every quarter 
of Virginia as of the South, and all of the learned professions were 
represented on its rolls. At one time, shortly after Barton joined 
it, nearly if not quite half its members had been at college, and 
no small proportion were graduates, four University Masters of 
Arts among others. Its services on many a hard-fought field, 
added to the esteem in which it is known to have been held by 
Jackson and other eminent commanding officers, sufficiently attest 
its fighting qualities. Of the hundreds that first and last com- 
posed it scores received commissions, and scarcely any branch of 
the service was without representatives from its ranks. No com- 
pany in the army possessed for Barton so many attractive asso- 
ciations, a consideration which always materially diminished his 
great natural distaste for the service. lie was ever one of its most 
valued members. 

At the time he enlisted his command formed part of the army 
of General Jos. E. Johnston, then near Martinsburg. On the 2d 
July he was for the first time in action, and shared the honor of 
manning the only piece of artillery employed in Jackson's bril- 
liant repulse of Patterson at Falling Waters — the first ever fired 
in defence of his native Valley. At Manassas, on the 21st of 
the same month, he was again engaged, his battery bearing no 
mean part in that memorable victory. The rest of his military 
career sorted well with this beginning. ' For fourteen months in 
the ranks, through all the varied experience of a constant follower 
of Jackson, in almost his every battle, through •many hundred 
miles of marching in mountain snows and lowland sands, " in 
journeyings often ... in weariness and painfulness, in watch- 
ings often, in hunger and thirst," he served the cause and country 
he loved so well. 

In Aucrust, 1862, the advancement he well deserved was ten- 
dered him in the shape of a lieutenancy in Cutshaw's Battery (sul- 
sequently merged into Carpenter's) from his own county. The 
vacancy he was elected to fill had been occasioned by the death of 
iiis eldest brother (Lieutenant Charles Marshall Barton) in the 
battle of Winchester on the 25th of the previous May. - The office 



292 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. [December, 

was gratefully accepted. In the steadfast discharge of the duties 
thus assumed he continued to the end. After an active participa- 
tion in the work of the bloody week at Manassas, and of the 
Maryland campaign, he found himself again a member of the 
army about Winchester, and during the few weeks that elapsed 
before the march to Fredericksburg, was once more allowed occa- 
sional intercourse with his beloved family circle. 

After harmlessly facing each other for months on either side of 
the upper Potomac the opposing armies of Lee and the enemy 
removed to like relative positions on the banks of the Rappahan- 
nock at Fredericksburg. Here early in December it became 
manifest a great conflict was imminent. In a letter written on 
the 10th the subject of this notice expressed a conviction to that 
effect, together with the most confident anticipation of Confederate 
success. Two days later, while intimating a like opinion to a 
brother officer, he expressed a further conviction that he should 
not survive the impending engagement. 

The day which was to achieve such glory for his country's arms 
and to live forever in her annals at last arrived, and, under the 
direction of his superior officer, he placed his section in position. 
At an early period of the battle and while aiding his brave can- 
noneers in rolling up one of the guns after the recoil of firing — 
itself a fitting type of his uniform zeal and efficiency in action — 
he fell unconscious, mortally wounded in the head. His brother. 
Lieutenant W. Strother Barton, of the 2d Virginia Infantry, 
whose command was near, assisted in bearing his bleeding form to 
the rear. Death ensued in fifteen minutes. The breath had 
scarcely left his body when an unexpected advance of the enemy 
making further removal impracticable, it was committed to the 
earth by the weeping brother, who, from the loss of a leg at Mine 
Run, himself now fills a soldier's grave. The place of this hasty 
interment was subsequently marked and inclosed, but, after a pro- 
tracted occupation of the locality by Federal troops during tlie 
following year, no trace of it could be discovered. The sole earthly 
memorial of him that lay there is now in the hearts of those that 
loved and survive him. Among such the present writer — an 
intimate friend before and an immediate comrade during the war 
— is to be classed. 

As these limits forbid a fuller delineation of the character which 
is thus its own sole monument, a few leading traits only will 



Igjo-j THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 293 

be noticed. Of these there was from his earliest years none 
more marked than his deep hatred of injustice and oppression, a 
feeling which created in him a peculiar devotion to the cause of 
his country, and made out of one whose previous pursuits least 
fitted him for it a brave and enthusiastic soldier. That he was 
thus in earnest the world will ask no better evidence than the seal 
he has set to his devotion ; those who knew him are not thereby 
better convinced of it than before. His ardent and generous 
impulses, cheerful temper and aifectionate disposition, added 
to a singular uprightness and integrity of character, secured for 
him in no ordinary degree the love and confidence of his friends 
and the respect of all. His piety was earnest and unaffected, and 
it had been for years his purpose to seek holy orders. A faithful 
soldier of the Cross as of the Confederacy, his life while exposed 
to the trials and dangers of war was " the path of the just," which 
" is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the 
perfect day." The full fruition of that perfect day and the higher 
ministry of heaven are now his exceeding great rew?^rd. 



RANDOLPH FAIRFAX, 

Private, Rockbridge Artillery. 

Few of those who fell in the Confederate War can claim so long 
a descent as he Avhose name heads this page. For eight centuries 
the family of Fairfax has been known in Great Britain and Amer- 
ica ; a famil v, as an English writer has fitly said, " whose members 
distinguished themselves in so many different paths and served 
their country in so many different capacities — in the council, in 
the camp, on the bench and in the Church" as to enjoy an hon- 
'ourable eminence. However deservedly prominent some of his 
ancestors may have been it is believed none of them would have 
blushed to own the youthful scion of their race — the subject of 
the present sketch — for whom it was reserved in an obscure yet 
noble si)here to illustrate in our day and country the hereditary 
virtues of his house.* 

* Tlie follnwinfj; outUne of the history of the family is compiled from the 
Fairfax CfirrcspoiKUiice, edited by Geo. W\ Johnson, Esq., Jiarrister at I^aw. Lon- 
don. IHIS. [4 vols. «vo.] 

The name is .Saxon, Fairfax meaning " fair hair." At or before the Conquest the 
family was seated iu Northumberland, though subsecjueutly established in York- 



294 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [December, 



Randolph Fairfax, born in Alexandria, Virginia, on the 
23d of November, 1842, was the second son of Doctor Orlando 
Fairfax, who is the third son of Thomas Fairfax, the ninth inher- 
itor of the title of Lord Fairfax. His mother is a daughter of 
Jefferson Gary and Virginia Randolph, and niece to Thomas 
Mann Randolph, sometime Governor of Virginia. 

The personal beauty which distinguished him in later years 
was observable from the first, though perhaps never so conspicuous 
as after he became a soldier. There seems to have been at least as 
close a resemblance between his moral traits as child and man. 
He was gentle in temper and manners and conscientious in con- 
duct, yet then, as afterwards, free from all cant. His playmates 
loved him because he ** never got angry and always played fair," 
nor was any among them fonder of play or more excellent in 
athletic feats. All agree that he was peculiarly characterized by 
a regard for what he believed his duty. The following incident, 
which occurred when he was about twelve years old, well illus- 
trates this. He belonged to a boating club, the members of which 
one summer afternoon proj^osed a sail on the river. His mother 
forbade his joining them in sailing, but had no objection to his 
being of a rowing party. On his account the proposed useof can- 

shire. The first of the house whose name is of record is Richard Fairfax, who, in 
1204, owned " the manor of Askham and other lands in the neighbourhood of York." 
During the three following centuries not a fow of the family occupied honourable 
positions under the crown. Randolph Fairfax is the lineal descendant of Thomas 
Fairfax, son and rightful heir to Sir William Fairfax, liigh Sheriff of York in the 
time of Henry VIII, but disinherited by his father, a rigid Papist, for having assisted 
at tlie sacking of Rome in the beginning of the Reformation. The eldest son of this 
Thomas FairlUx, who bore his father's name, was a man of parts and character. He 
was distinguished as a diplomatist under Elizabeth and was knighted, as his father 
had been at the hands of his sovereign in 1576, by the celebrated Earl of Essex, 
then Captain General of the Queen's forces before Rouen. His public services were 
subsequently further acknowledged by his elevation to the peerage as I^ord Fair/ax 
of Cameron. He died in 1(J40, at ihe age of eighty. His son Ferdinand enjoyed the 
title but eight years. The third lord was Ferdinand's eldest son, Thomas, the cel- 
ebrated Lord General of tlie Parliamentary forces, a man " whose military exploits 
have attached a lasting historical importance to the name he bore, and may be said 
to comprise the annals of the Civil War." In default of his direct male issue the 
title went at the death of the General to Henry, the eldest son of the Kev. Henrj- 
Fairfax, Rector of Bolton Percy, who was second son of the first Lord Fairfax, and 
lie in 1(571 becarae the fourth lord. He and his son Thomas, afterwards the fifth lord, 
were botli prominent as officers in the Revolution of 1688. The fifth lord married a 
daughter of Lord Culpeper. Their eldest son, Thomas, the sixth Lord, through his 
mother the richest that ever bore the name, had various estates in England and 
owned 5,700,001) acres in Virginia, where during many years of his life, at Greenway 
Court, in the present county of Clarke, he resided. He was the early friend ard 
patron of Washington, and is mentioned at some length in Living's biography. He 
was never married, and died in 17S2at92. Both he and his brother Robert, of Leeds 
Castle, (the seventh lord,) dying childless, the title reverted to the Rev. Bryan Fair- 
fax, Rector of Fairfax Parish in the County of Fairfax, son of William Fairfax of 
Belvoir on the Potomac, who was first cousin to the lord of Greenway Court and 
grandson of the fourth lord. Thomas, the eldest son of Bryan, succeeded him as 
ninth lord. He had four sons, Albert, Henry, Orlando and Reginald. Albert, the 
eldest, died before his father, so, upon the death of the latter in 1816, the title went to 
Albert's eldest son, Charles Snowden Fairfax, the tenth lord, who died without issue 
within the present year (18B9.) The eleventh and present lord, a younger brother of 
Charles, is John Contee Fairfax, M D., of Maryland. It is proper to add thot tbe 
title, though still duly recognized in the Britislr peerage books, has not beenahouaied 
by its American representatives since the death of the eighth lord. 



1802.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 295 



vas was given up and they rowed together four miles up the 
river. The wind then being particularly favourable, the raising 
of a sail was suggested. Randolph insisted, on their doing it, 
made them put him ashore and walked home, "It was hard to 
do," he said, " and I have had a very hot walk, but I could not 
disobey you, mother." 

From his first male teacher, Mr. Benjamin Hallowell, he was, 
in the autumn of 1857, transferred to the Episcopal High School 
ut Howard, near Alexandria, then under the rectorship of the 
Rev. John P. McGuire. Thence, after two sessions, he went 
for a time to the school of Mr. Wm. Dinwiddie, in Albemarle, and 
in October, 1860, became a student of the University of Virginia. 
From the beginning of his academic life his success in his studies 
was marked and uniform. Previous to leaving the High School, 
in 1859, he won its highest honours, and was pronounced by Mr. 
McGuire the most gifted of his pupils. 

During his stay at Howard, when scarcely fifteen years of age, 
lie became a communicant of the Church. AVhile this was his 
first public profession of religion, the uniform testimony of his 
family and friends would indicate that from the earliest years of ac- 
countability his outward life at least had been that of a devout 
Christian. A Diary commenced about this time, as well as other 
private papers, of the existence of which even his parents were 
unaware until after his death, exhibit a fervour of religious feel- 
ing and a strength of religious principle, which, corroborated as 
they are by his holy life, manifest maturity of piety rarely seen in 
the faithful of any age. 

His conduct as a student of the University of Virginia accorded 
well with the promise of his previous life. Without excessive 
effort, and amid the unprecedented interruptions of the time, he 
achieved during his only year in college honourable distinction, 
and gained degrees in the Schools of Mathematics, Latin and 
French. He was a faithful student, but allowed nothing to inter- 
fere with religious duties. The Bible-class, the mission-station 
and the students' prayer-meeting were all cherished as means of 
grace and usefulness. He was a member of the students' Chris- 
tian Association ; also of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. A 
few weeks after the opening of the session two military companies 
were organized among the students. Of one of these — the 
"Southern Guard," Captain E. S. Hutter of Lynchburg — Ran- 



296 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [December, 

DOLPH was a zealous member. When the company vohmteered, 
two days after the Fall of Sumter, to march to Harper's Ferry, he, 
like many others anxious to go, refrained, in deference to his 
parents' wishes, from doing so, and during the few remaining 
weeks of the session confined himself to his studies. 

The events of the Spring of 1861 in Virginia are too fresh in 
the minds of the reader to need recapitulation, and the sentiments 
of the best and bravest of her sons too well remembered to need 
recall here. Suffice it to say that the opinions and feelings of him 
of whom we write were thoroughly and devotedly patriotic; 
indeed, had not the virtue of that glorious time been sogenerally i 
striking, it might be added peculiarly so. He said little but " 
thought and felt much. With such character, disposition and 
tastes as his, it may readily be supposed the life of a soldier was 
the very last he would have chosen for himself, and some hesita- 
tion ^t first about entering it might have been pardoned. So far 
from manifesting any, however, as has been already intimated, he 
made up his mind from the first that it was his duty to go and 
calmly determined to do so. At the close of the session he was 
induced for a time to postpone going to the field, and spent six weeks 
in a camp of instruction that had been established at the University. 
Finally, on the 12th August, he repaired to Centreville and 
enlisted in the Rockbridge Artillery, at that time commanded by 
Captain (afterwards General) Wm. N. Pendleton, D. D., and 
attached to the brigade of General T. J. Jackson, to whose com- 
mand it continued ever afterward, through his several promotions, 
to beloner. 

In this company, to which reference was made in the preceding 
memoir, it is not remarkable that Fairfax found congenial asso- 
ciations. In his earliest letters home cordial mention is made of 
his messmates and friends, D. R. Barton, of Winchester ; K. Nelson, 
of Clarke; J. M. Garnett and Berkeley Minor, of Hanover; L. S. 
ISIacon, of Albemarle ; L, M. Blackford, of Lynchburg ; Joseph 
Packard, of I airfax ; and others. In tlie same connection he men- 
tions his impressions of camp life as most pleasant, and declares he 
lias no wish to be an officer. " My situation," he writes, " is the 
uiore desirable of the two. I have none of an officer's cares and 
responsibilities, I have as agreeable companions as I ever had at 
school or college, I have as many privileges as I desire, and I live 
as well as most officers and better than many. The additional 



jggoj THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 297 

honour is very little in my opinion The attractions of office 

would not induce me to give up the agreeable companionship and 
liglit duty of my present situation." 

The career of the subject of this memoir is from this time so 
closely identified with that of his command, and consequently 
with what lias now become history, that it is needless to follow it 
in detail. Still it is regretted that the present limits forbid 
further extracts from his correspondence, containing as it does a 
continuous and most lively description of Jackson's celebrated 
campaigns as they appeared to a private of eighteen. In the lan- 
guage of another, his letters, " hastily as they have been penned, 
are cliaracterized by a vein of strong common sense unusual in one 
so young, and by uncommon sagacity." They are marked too, 
as the same writer has observed, by a healthy religious tone, a 
glowing patriotism and a manly spirit. 

Early in November, 1861, Major General Jackson assumed 
command at Winchester, and the Rockbridge Artillery, with the 
rest of the Stonewall Brigade, was ordered to join hira. Here 
they were for some time engaged in skirmishing along the border, 
and, upon receiving reinforcements, were employed during nearly 
the whole of January in the Bath and Romney expedition, one 
which will long be remembered for its peculiar trials, involving 
as it did a march of twelve days through a barren country and 
the chilling blasts and snows of a Northern Virginia winter. Re- 
turning to winter-quarters at Winchester the attentior. of the 
army was for the first time drawn to the question of voluntary re- 
enlistment then strongly encouraged by Congress, no conscription 
having yet been enacted. Fairfax was among the first to re- 
spond to the appeal, and, being granted the stipulated furlough, 
spent a month with his friends at home, the last and only time, 
with the exception of two days in the following summer^ he was 
ever with them. Before his return to the army the first evacua- 
tion of the lower Valley had been consummated, and the campaign 
in, that quarter which was to render the name of Jackson im- 
mortal had begun. 

From this time until his death he was never absent from his 
company and very rarely off duty in it for a single day. From 
March to December, through more than twelve hundred miles of 
weary marching, whether amid the mountains of Highland in 
Snrin<T. the swamps of the Chickahorainy at midsummer, or the 



298 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [December, 

exhausting service of the Second Manassas and Maryland cam- 
paign, through trials and privations seldom equalled and through 
numerous and bloody battles, he passed, the same patier.t hero. 
Scrupulously exact in the discharge of every duty ; uncon^lruiiing 
in his endurance of hardship ; brave, self-possessed and efficient 
in action ; he was appropriately styled by his comrades the model 
SOLDIER. Nor was he less exemplary as a Christian. It was the 
privilege of the writer to enjoy with him a daily intercourse and 
close intimacy, and, with the excellent opportunity of observation 
thus afforded, he bears explicit testimony to the devotion, ear- 
nestness and symmetry of his religious character, the purity of 
his life and the power of his godly example. 

Autumn, with its unexpected inactivity, was gone, and winter 
found the army of Gen. Lee calmly awaiting at Fredericksburg 
the advance of the invader. For several days previous to the 
great battle the Rockbridge Battery had been on duty near Port 
Royal, but it was hastily ordered back and, after marching all 
Friday night, was posted on Saturday morning, 13th December, 
1862, for action on the right near the Hamilton iiouse. Here 
they fought and here, with five of his comrades, Randolph 
Fairfax fell. The sun, which had shone so brightly upon that 
glorious and hard-fought field, had just gone down, but still the 
battle raged and still he nobly stood to his gun So was it his 
last summons came. A blow on the head from a fragment of 
shell,* and without a struggle he passed away — a painless trans- 
lation to a blessed eternity. 

With a view to corroborating the writer's estimate of the subject 
of this notice the following extracts from some of the numerous 
letters received by his friends after his death are appended. 

The late Rev. John P. McGuire, his teacher for two years, 
remarks : 

" His character was throughout of the highest order, and 'per- 
haps more remarkable for its exquisite finish than for anything 
else. As a pupil in the High School, as a student, a Christian, 
there was a uniform consistency, making one day of singular ex- 
cellence but the representative of the rest, and giving to the whole 
a completeness rarely equalled in its strength and loveliness, in- 
tellectually he was undoubtedly one of the first young men of his 

* Pieces of the same shell mortally wounded Lt. Jol. Lewis M. Coleman, ivi. A., 
late Professor of Latin in the University of Virginia, and young Arthur Rob'.nson, 
son of an eminent citizen of Baltimore, and grandson of WiUiam "Wirt, 



1^,;-,'.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 299 

day Morally I have not known his superior. God 

endowed him with a strange purity of mind and heart, and to this 

added the grace of true religion However retiring and 

unassuming in his general bearing, he was constitutionally brave, 
richly gifted with that moral courage the want of which is often 
the great defect of men of genius and even of gallant soldiers. 
Not the slightest timidity was there, no hesitancy or avoiding of 
responsibility where duty was concerned. Brave as Csesar in the 
field of battle, he was not less so for truth and right in public and 
private, in the most retired walks of life or amid a crowd of gay 
and thoughtless school-boys, or the tempting fascinations of the 
social circle." 

Littleton S. Macon, Esq., late Sheriff of the County of Albe- 
marle, a friend and messmate, says : 

" He was ever the noble, self-sacrificing boy who commanded 
the admiration of all around him. As a soldier he was surpassed 
by none. He never swerved from the path of duty, and he met 
danger even at the cannon's mouth with unfaltering courage. As 
a Christian he was sincere and consistent, conscientious in the dis- 
charge of the duties of every post : from his daily life was re- 
flected a light which always makes an unmistakable impress, but 
especially in the bloody strife of the battle-field and in the daily in- 
tercourse of camp. In many situations I have seen him severely 
tested, and in all he evinced the same heroism. In cold, hunger 
or fatigue I never heard him murmur. He was ever ready to 
share his comfort and partake of others' hardships." 

The Rev. Kinloch Nelson, now of Fauquier, says : 

" My acquaintance with him commenced in 1857 at the Epis- 
copal High School, where his modest manners and unselfish dis- 
position endeared him to all. .... lu the next summer he 
became a communicant of the Church, and during the five follow- 
ing years I can truly say I never saw him guilty of a single act 
inconsistent with his profession. At the University we were con- 
stantly together, and in the army we were intimately associated 
as messmates, and he continued a faithful soldier alike of his 
country and of his God." 

Berkeley ISIinor, Esq., of Hanover, says : 

"I knew Fairfax at the University quite well but not so 
intimately as afterwards in the Rockbridge Battery. For several 
months before his death I was his messmate and bedfellow, and 



300 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [December, 

was able to note more fully the tone of earnest piety that per- 
vaded his words and actions. He was unselfish, modest and 
uniformly kind and considerate to all. If there was one trait in 
him more striking than others it was his calm, earnest, trustful 
demeanour in time of battle, resulting I believe, from his abiding 
trust in the providence and love of God." 

Joseph Packard, Esq., now of Baltimore, a friend and comrade, 
says : 

*' His cheerful courage, his coolness and steadiness made him 
conspicuous on every battle-field. At Malvern Hill, where he 
received a wound which nine out of ten would have considered 
an excuse for retiring from the awful scene, he persisted in remain- 
ing at his post, and did the work of two until the Battery left the 
field. But it was in the bearing more than in the daring of the 
soldier's life that his lovely character displayed itself. He never 
avoided the most irksome and trying duties. If he had selfish- 
ness, those who knew him long and well as schoolmate and com- 
rade never discerned it." 

Captain (afterwards Lt. Col.) Wm. T. Poague, commanding 
the Rockbridge Artillery, writes to his father : 

"In simple justice to your son I desire to express my high 
appreciation of his noble character as a soldier, a Christian and a 
gentleman. Modest and courteous in his deportment, charitable 
and unselfish in his disposition, cheerful and conscientious in his 
performance of duty, upright and consistent in his walk and con- 
versation, he was a universal favourite in the company and greatly 
beloved by his friends. I do not think I have ever known a 
young man whose life was so free from the frailties of human 
nature and whose character, in all its aspects, formed so faultless a 
model for the imitation of others. Had his influence been 
restricted to the silent power and beauty of his example his life 
on earth, short as it was, would not have been in vain." 

The following letter from the Commander of the army forms a 
fit conclusion : 

Camp Feedericksburg, Dec. 2Sth, 1862. 
My Dear Doctor : 

I have grieved most deeply at the death of your noble son. I 
have watched his conduct from the commencement of the war, 
and have pointed with pride to the patriotism, self-denial and 
manliness of character he has exhibited. I had hoped that an 




:, y((. -^...t 



'-C^v 



igc-ij THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 301 

opportunity would occur for the promotion lie deserved ; not that 
it would have elevated him, but have shewn that his devotion to 
duty was appreciated by his country. Such an opjiortunity would 
undoubtedly have occurred ; but he has been translated to a better 
world for which his purity and piety eminently fitted him. You 
do not require to be told how great is his gain. It is the living 
for whom I sorrow. I beg you will offer to Mrs. Fairfax and 
your daughters my heartfelt sympathy, for I know the depth of 
their grief. That God may give you and them strength to bear 
this great affliction is the earnest prayer of your early friend, 

R. E. Lee. 
Dr. Orlando Fairfax, Richmond. 



LEWIS MINOR COLEMAN, M. A., 

PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 
Lieutenant-Colonel, First Regiment of Virginia Artillery. 

Lewis Minor Coleman, the founder of Hanover Academy, 
Professor of Latin in the University of Virginia, and Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel of the First Regiment of Virginia Artillery, C. S. A., 
was born in Hanover county, Virginia, on the 3d of February, 
1827. He was the eldest son of Thomas B. Coleman, Esq., of 
Caroline county, Va. His father, a gentleman of fine talents, and 
great popularity among his fellow-citizens (whom he represented 
for many years in the General Assembly of Virginia), died while 
yet a young man, in the midst of an active and honorable career, 
leaving his son Lewis, together with a younger brother and a sis- 
ter, to the care of the mother. She was a woman in all respects 
worthy of the trust ; and the death of the father, which would 
seem so great a calamity, was in the providence of God turned to 
advantage, since tiie boy was, from this early period of his life, 
under the control of a noble and true woman, and his character 
moulded to jnirity and symmetry by her single guiding hand. She 
was indeed a type of tlie excellences of the class of landed proprie- 
tors and country residents from which she sprang, and a noble spec- 
imen of the Virginia matron. Remarkable for her strong com- 



'=>*J-^ THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. [December, 

mon-sense and excellent judgment, with an intellect singularly 
broad in its scope and marked by masculine vigor, slie had re- 
ceived an excellent education, and improved it by extensive read- 
ing. To those qualities of the head she united qualities of heart 
of the purest and most elevated character : an innate and unswerv- 
ing love of truth and right, resolute will and energy^ strong 
affections, and large-hearted sympathy and charity. These strong 
lines of her character were shaded by all the softness and grace of 
womanhood, and by deep and abiding conviction of religious 
truth.* 

To such control was her son Lewis exclusively subjected dur- 
ing his infancy, and for a large portion of his boyhood. Nature 
had mingled the elements of good so largely in his character, that 
but little guidance was needed to direct and mould it aright, but 
it was his singular good fortune, at this early age, to be guided 
by one with head so clear and hand so strong and steady. 

At the death of the father, Mrs. Coleman removed with her 
young family to the house of her father, Mr. Robert Coleman, of 
Hanover, which from that time became her and their home. 
Relieved from household duties, she at once gave her whole time 
and attention to her cliildren. From an early age Lewis gave 
evidence of a quick and enquiring mind; he learned his early 
tasks with ease and rapidity. His mother often said that she had 
never any trouble in teaching Lewis. His excellent opportunities, 
his quickness and application, placed him far before most boys of 
his age. At an early age he began to exhibit those traits which 
eminently marked the future man. He had a wonderful degree 
of perseverance and application, a gentle and cheerful disposition, 
strong affections, a winning and affectionate behavior towards his 
companions, a deep veneration for his mother, firmness and a love 
of truth not to be shaken. His mother often related an anecdote 
of his childhood, which shows in a marked manner his firmness 
and truth, as well as the magnanimity of the boy at this early age. 
The two brothers, much alike as to size and dress, were engaged 
in some light task in the yard. Upon some sudden boyish quarrel, 
the younger struck Lewis a blow, under which he fell to the 
ground. Passing the window at the moment, the mother caught 
a glimpse of the fray, and hastening towards them found the 

♦This lady was married a second time to Dr. George Fleming. By this marriage 
there was a large family, most of them now surviving, and several of them were 
closely associated with Colonel Coleman in his military career. She died in 1868. 



18G2] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 303 



younger prostrate on the ground, upon which he had cast himself 
in his excitement, and in order to deceive his mother into the 
belief that he was the injured party, and Lewis standing over 
him in a threatening attitude. Taking it for granted that the 
blow had been given by Lewis, she took him by the arm, and 
breaking a convenient switch, punished him. He simply said, 
" Mother, I did not strike him." Thinking she could trust her 
own eyes, she whipped him again for the supposed falsehood, and 
yet again for persisting in it. He brought no accusation against 
his brother — never reproached liini for the blow, nor for his 
silence in permitting him to receive an unmerited chastisement, 
and without further allusion to the circumstance resumed his 
ordinary intercourse. Years passed and both boys were grown. 
One day, in speaking of Lewis, who was absent, the mother 
observed, " I never knew him to tell a falsehood but once, and for 
that I never could account." " Mother," said the younger, "that 
matter has troubled my conscience for a long time. Your eyes 
deceived you. I struck the blow you saw given, and Lebtls told 
the truth." "Big as you are," replied the mother, " I have a 
great mind to whip you for it now." 

Lewis's education was continued by his mother till he was of 
the age of thirteen or fourteen, by which time she had imparted 
to him a very thorough training in English, the rudiments of 
Latin, and in addition a degree of historical and literary culture 
very unusual for a boy of his age. But what was of more worth 
than mere book knowledge, she had taught hiui how to apply his 
powers, how to study, and, above all, had so shaped his principles 
by her standard of moral and religious excellence, that the bent so 
given was never changed, and the outgrowth of his moral nature 
kept pace with his intellectual progress. 

From under his mother's tuition, Lewis was sent to a private 
school at Beaver Dam, the residence of Colonel E. Fontaine, of 
Hanover. At this school his thorough grounding by his mother 
gained him a high stand, which his own diligence and powers 
of application maintained, while he won the aifecvionate regard of 
his schoolmates by his amiable disposition and pleasing manners. 
When about fifteen years of age, Lew^is was transferred to Con- 
cord Academy, a large public school then taught by his uncle, 
Frederick W. Coleman, near Bowling Green, in Caroline county. 

The school- of Virginia since that period (1841-2) have im- 



304 THE TJNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[December, 



proved both in number and character, but at that time the acad- 
emy at Concord deservedly enjoyed the reputation of being the 
best school in the State. It was a preparatory school for the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, whose course of instruction was adopted, and 
of which the Principal, Mr. Coleman, was a graduate. From the 
nature of the instruction given, the organization of the school, 
and the character of the Principal, the school was not well adapted 
for small boys and beginners ; but it had no superior in the ad- 
vantages it afforded to more advanced students, and those whose 
habits of study were fixed. It numbered, at this time, from forty 
to fifty boys of various ages, from all parts of Virginia and the 
Southern States. The boys were generally from the best class of 
society, and numbered many who were talented and well advanced. 
Among these youths, young Coleman in the course of two 
sessions became readily the first boy. In the classics, to which 
the greatest attention was paid, he was confessedly first, and in 
mathematics, for which he never exhibited so great a fondness, 
among the first. With the young men he was a great favorite, 
not simply because of his talents and rank in the school, but on 
account of his lively and genial temperament, his frank and 
manly deportment, and his perfect truth and honor. He had no 
enemies : I don't think he ever had a quarrel even Avith any of his 
companions. He never went by his surname of Coleman, but 
was always called " Lewis," or " Old Lewis," a term of endearment 
among schoolboys. His habits of study were regular and con- 
stant. From the time of his admission to this school, his aim had 
been to prepare himself to take the highest honors at the Uni- 
versity. From this object he was turned aside by no obstacle. 
In the intervals of his regular school duties he found time to read 
alone a vast deal of Greek and Latin, which he ascertained would 
be required of the student at the University ; completing by this 
means a course of classical reading more than usually extensive. 
To Mathematics too he devoted a large share of his spare time, 
going carefully over the whole ground in order to perfect himself- 
in that in which he considered himself most deficient. But while 
he took all this extra work upon himself, he was not shy nor 
retiring in his manners, nor did he seclude himself from his young 
companions. No one was more ready for fun and frolic than he, 
provided always that they kept within the bounds of the school 
laws, and above all within the rules of propriety and morality. 



1862.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 305 



Among these school-fellows and associates, in tlie midst of happy 
scenes and pleasant employment, he formed many ties of friendship 
which lasted through life and were his greatest sources of happi- 
ness. 

In 1844 young Coleman left Concord and entered the Uni- 
versity. He met here many of his old friends from Concord, v/ho 
had preceded him a year or two, and who had already spread his 
reputation as a scholar among the students. It was soon found 
l)oth by students and professors to be not undeserved. His habits 
of application, his previous good preparation and his natural 
})Owers of mind soon placed him among the first in his classes. 
Keeping steadily before him the objects he had in view through a 
University education, he permitted none of the allurements of 
student life to wile him from his persevering pursuit of learning. 
All the beautiful traits of his boyhood seemed deepened and inten- 
sified. The same charm of manner, his genial cheerful temper, 
and more than all, his powers of conversation, which began now to 
be developed, made him equally a favorite among his fellows of 
the University as among his companions at school, while his 
strong and inborn sense of right and honor, and the ever-remem- 
bered admonitions of his mother, held him aloof from all the 
dissipations and vices of college life. While it was known that 
he was studious, and scrupulous in the discharge of every duty 
and in the observance of college discipline, yet it was equally \vell 
known that he felt a zest in every innocent and social enjoyment. 
Hence no one was more souglit for by the quiet and studious 
members of the University at their social gatherings, where his 
gaiety, brilliancy and wit were the life of the party. Even among 
the idle and wild students, he had his friends and admirers. 

At the close of the term in July^ 1845, he was graduated in all 
his tickets, about half the number required for his degree. This 
established his reputation as a student, and on his return to the 
University the next fall, he was looked upon not only as one of 
the first students in the University, but as one of the first young 
men of his State. At this term he took the remaining classes 
necessary to obtain his Degree. Although from his position in 
the College, his extensive acquaintance among the students, and 
the greater amount of leisure which the diminished duties of this 
year placed at his disposal, every inducement Avas held out for 
relaxation of habits, for idleness, and even for dissipation, vet 
20 _ -. '- 



306 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [December, 

Lewis's course was just the same. Only so much time as could 
be spared from the full and perfect discharge of his duties was 
given to relaxation, none to dissipation ; yet that was sufficient to 
assure to him a large number of associates and friends, and as great 
popularity and consideration as ever. The writer spent a few 
days at the University during this last session of Lewis, and he 
recollects Avith pleasure the unbounded affection which his friends 
manifested towards Lewis, and the almost universal respect in 
which he was held by the mass of the students. The friends who 
were then around him, who loved him and whom he loved, con- 
tinued bound to him all through his life. The affection with 
Avhich he regarded them, and tiie charming associations with which 
their names were connected, drew the bonds of affection even closer 
when the duties of life had separated him from them. He always 
spoke of them as his dearest friends, and of the college days as 
among the hap})iest of his life. 

At the end of this term he was graduated Master of Arts, 
having completed the entire course of study for that degree in two 
years. 

In the interval of leisure which he spent at his home, young 
Coleman's mind took a more serious turn. To this condition 
the success which had hitherto marked his progress, and the near 
prospect of active life and its responsibilities, doubtless tended. 
He had also, as a boy, been to a greater or less degree actuated in 
his conduct by religious motives, and without having ever 
expressed the desire or intention of becoming a member of Christ, 
it was evident that the early impressions derived from his mother 
had never been eradicated, but on the contrary had rather grown 
and intensified with his advancing years. The good seed so sown 
now brought forth its fruit. To a mind so well balanced as Lewis's, 
to a heart so open to the influences of goodness and truth, there 
was needed no long nor laborious study, no serious vacillations of 
doubt, for deep and lasting conviction of the truth and value of 
Christianity. With him to be convinced was to act. He was 
baptized by the Rev. J. L. Burrows, D. D., of the First Baptist 
Church in Richmond, in November, 1846, and received into full 
membership with that denomination. From this time forward 
his character, as it expanded and matured, was moulded and fash- 
ioned by a faith which never faltered nor wavered. His religion 
became a part of his daily life, was his guide amid all the dangers 



1862.] THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 307 

and troubles of his life, his sure trust in j^rosperity, and his con- 
solation in every adversity. 

At the close of his vacation, Lewis became the assistant of his 
uncle, Frederick Coleman, in Concord Academy. I am not aware 
tl.at he had any settled plan, at this time, of becoming a teacher 
by profession. The immediate reason of his taking this position 
Avitli his uncle was, doubtless, the fact that his long course at 
school and college had somewhat exhausted his patrimony, and 
his grandfather was anxious he should at once turn his acquire- 
ments to account, and earn a living. But it is certain that soon 
after entering upon his duties as Assistant at Concord, he resolved 
to make teaching his profession. His acquirements as well as his 
tastes eminently fitted him for the profession. His own conscious- 
ness must have made him aware of his aptitude in governing 
boys and his facility at imparting information. His judgment 
pointed out the faults of the system at Concord ; he saw how these 
might be remedied, and how the cause of education in general 
might he advanced. 

His position at Concord as assistant teacher was one of consid- 
erable embarrassment. He was a very young man thrown in con- 
tact with a large number of boys, many nearly grown, some of 
whom had been his schoolmates at the same place, and all of whom 
were ready with the acuteness of boys to draw unfavorable com- 
parisons between him in his manner of teaching, the amount of 
his information, and the well-established Principal. Moreover, he 
had to contend with the spirit of insubordination and disrespect 
invariably exhibited towards assistants and underlings by the gov- 
erned class, nowhere manifested in such perfection perhaps as in a 
large school. But the new assistant not only stood the ordeal 
successfully, but soon became as great a favorite among the boys as 
his uncle. In this subordinate capacity young Coleman began 
to display that wonderful knack in controlling and managing 
youths which was so strikingly exemplified throughout his whole 
subsequent career. Perhaps the fact of his commencing his pro- 
fession at so early an age, before he had laid aside himself all the 
promptings of boy-nature, made him more capable of sympathizing 
with them and entering into their peculiar views; but it is very 
certain, whatever the reason, that ho possessed a facility for con- 
trolling boys and attaching them to himself that amounted almost 
to a gift. The amount of practical experience gained by him at 
this time was of great advantage to him in his nrofession. 



308 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. [December, 

Concord Academy closed a few years after this time by tiie 
retirement of Mr. F. W. Coleman from the business. Lewis 
resolved then to open a school himself. He purchased a small 
piece of land, with a good house upon it, near Taylorsville, in the 
county of Hanover, and here in the fall of 1849 he opened the 
school then and now known as Hanover Academy. The associa- 
tion 'with his uncle had given him some reputation, his own 
scholarship and skill as a teacher had added to it, and hiS popu- 
larity among his contemporaries, as well as with the students of 
Concord, had made him extensively and favorably known. The 
consequence was that his school was a success from the beginning. 
The first year he had forty boys. It needed only that he should 
have a fair opportunity to show his real merits; the next session 
not only brought a large increase of numbers but placed the school 
upon a basis from which it never declined. The success of his 
plan of teaching, his admirable management of young men, the 
progress made under his tuition, the high stand which the stu- 
dents from his Academy took in their classes at the University, 
and as much or more than all, perhajjs, the admiration and love 
with which he inspired his students, tended from year to year to 
raise the reputation of the school and the teacher, till in the latter 
years of his stay at Hanover Academy, the numbers liad reached 
eighty boys, the largest school, perhaps, in the State. I shall not 
here discuss the direction and impulse which Coleman gave to 
the education of youth in his State : that will be commented on 
hereafter. But it may be mentioned now, that the success of his 
method gave birth to new enterprizes of the like kind, some of 
them under the conduct of his pupils ; so that in a few years the 
number of good High Schools in Virginia was much increased, to 
the manifest advantage of education. The improvement which 
Mr. Coleman made upon the plan of Concord, consisted in a 
greater attention to the lower classes, a more thorough grounding 
in the rudiments, a more perfect organization and system, with 
unfailing regularity. The course of instruction was also greatly 
extended. While he had several assistants, all matters of discipline 
in the last resort were decided by him. He had few so-called 
rules. He attempted in all things to arouse a proper emulation 
and cultivate a fondness for study. The sense of honor was 
appealed to in all cases, and a freer and more open intercourse 
between teacher and pupil fostered and encouraged. Hence a high 



1862.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 309 

tone was given to the cliaracter of the stndent, and liisown weight 
of character brought into more immediate and potent influence. 

While usefully and successfully engaged in prosecuting his pro- 
fession, Mr. CoLEMAX was married to Miss Mary Ambler Mar- 
shall, daughter of James K. Marshall, Esq., of Fauquier, a mem- 
ber of a family revered and honored by all Virginians. This 
lady, who yet survives, crowned his useful life with domestic hap- 
piness. 

While in the full tide of success at Hanover Academy, the 
resignation of Dr. Gessner Harrison, Professor of Latin in the 
University of Virginia, opened a new path of honor and distinc- 
tion for Mr. Coleman. As soon as the vacancy occurred, Mr. 
Coleman's name was most prominently presented to the Visitors. 
His early success as a student and graduate of the institution, his 
reputation for scholarship, his greater reputation as an instructor, 
his popularity, not only in his own State, but among the rising 
generation of many of the Southern States, and his \rell-known 
high character, gave him a commanding position among the can- 
didates for the vacancy. He was accordingly chosen without 
hesitation by the Visitors in July, 1859. He was now thirty-two 
years of age, and it is perhaps no small evidence of his worth as 
a man, of his excellence as a scholar, and of the high appreciation 
in which he was held by his countrymen, thas at so early an age 
he should have reached the highest position held out to him by 
his profession, and have been considered worthy to fill the position 
of his learned predecessor, Dr. Harrison. 

The field now opened to Prof. Coleman, as it was wider 
in its scope, more important in its bearings, more extensive in its 
influences, would doubtless have developed all the latent capa- 
bilities of the man. In his brief career as professor, cut short by 
the intervention of civil war and by his own death in the field, 
,he manifested the same excellent traits, the same faithful and 
earnest labor, the same zeal in the advancement of his profession. 
In the two years during which ho filled the chair of Latin at the 
University, he gave ])erfect satisfaction, and acquired the e?teem 
and regard of his colleagues and of the Visitors. So much so, 
indeed, that when in 18G1 he took the field in command of a com- 
pany of artillery and offered his resignation of the chair, the 
Visitors refused to accept it, and kept the place open for him. 
With such an earnest the assurance was felt that in his new and 



310 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [Decembei. 



more important sphere of action, Prof. Colemax would have 
acquired in a few years a celebrity equal to that which ho hcd 
already gained in the humbler walks of his profession. But tlie 
higli hopes of his friends and his own earnest desires for success 
were doomed to early disappointment. 

The close of the session in July, 1861, found the North and 
South arrayed in hostility. Prof. Coleman was no politician, no 
partizan, yet he entertained firm political opinions, adopted by him 
upon full and fair examination. He was a strong believer in 
States' Rights, which was sufficient to convince him of the recti- 
tude of the Southern cause, apart from any other considerations. 
But such convictions would not have been sufficient to cause him 
to abandon his peaceful pursuits, so congenial to his tastes and so 
useful to his country : the condition of Virginia immediately 
before and after the First Battle of Manassas, the fact that her 
soil was invaded, the general agitation and uneasiness of the minds 
of her people in regard to her position, were the operative causes 
which determined him. In the full comprehension of the danger 
and the necessities of his native State, under the promptings of 
2)atriotic duty, he became convinced that the place of the true 
citizen was now in the army. When his mind was made up as 
to his duty, nothing could turn him from performing it. All con- 
siderations of self were thrown aside ; fixing his eye on the goal, 
he pursued his way unfalteringly to the end. 

In the summer of 1861 he returned to his native county, and 
in conjunction with one or two friends, commenced the task of 
enlisting an artillery company for the service. The attempt seemed 
almost hopeless, as already three companies of infantry, one of 
cavalry and one 'of artillery, had swept off the most enthusiastic 
portion of the population of the county. But his energy was 
untiring. He visited every part of the county, spoke at every 
public gathering of the people, used his private influence among 
his friends and dependents, and in a few weeks was successful. 
He enlisted a large company, of which he was elected captain, 
and in August, 1861, mustered it into the service as the "Morris 
Artillery." 

Captain Coleman was no military man, either by inclination 
or education. His disposition as well as his chosen profession 
were in every respect of an entirely different tendency ; but he 
had undertaken this service, and with his usual fidelity to duty 



1862.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 311 

he applied all Iiis energies and faculties to the acquisition of the 
necessary knowledge, of his military duties. To a mind trained 
like his in severe and continuous study, it was no great task to 
acquire all the usual technical knowledge, but he did not stop here. 
Not only did he make himself master of the matter of drill and 
discipline, but he extended his inquiries into the scientific depart- 
ment of his arm of the service; and thus, though in no respect 
a man of war, he became in a sliort time one of the most efficient 
as well as one of the best informed officers in the artillery service. 
Captain Dance, of Powhatan, who was preparing a company for 
the field, at the same time and place, says of him : — 

" I was struck upon my first acquaintance with him, with his 
genial temperament and fine social qualities, rendering him at all 
times a most agreeable companion ; but I soon learned to admire 
still more his untiring energy, perseverance, and industry, as 
exhibited in his endeavors to equip and drill his company, and 
perfect himself and them in the necessary knowledge of tactics 
and military science. The first attempts at drilling his company 
excited a smile among those who had longer experience; but in a 
very short time his company was well drilled. His was a spirit 
never satisfied with mediocrity. Whatever he undertook he 
desired to do well, and he always succeeded. Although his com- 
pany was mustered in after mine, yet he succeeded in getting all 
ready and starting before me." 

His skill in controlling men now again stood him in good 
stead. He not only controlled the men of his command, but he 
gained their affi3ctions by his kindness and impartiality. He 
used such influence to arouse their emulation to excel, and ap- 
pealed successfully to their patriotism. Hence it happened that 
when, in the fall of 1861, his company was ordered to join the 
Army of Northern Virginia at Manassas, it was pronounced by 
tlie Chief of Artillery, on inspection and review, ane of the best 
in the service. 

His company was attached to General Pendleton's llcserve 
Corps of Artillery. In the tedium of winter-quarters Captain 
Coleman did not relax his attention to his company or to his 
duties. Indeed, it was taxed more than ever, in the slow melting 
away of the army in that camp at Manassas by sickness, deser- 
tion, and other causes. I miglit quote from many letters of his 
brother officers and associates at this time to show how highly he 



312 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOKIAL. 



^December 



was appreciated, and that his aflfability, liis agreeable qualities as 
a companion, his well-stored mind, and ^is fine conversational 
powers liad marked him here as everywhere else. 

When the army of McClellan moved down to the Peninsula, 
Captain Coleman moved Avith Johnston's army, to face it on the 
lines at Yorktown. The season was most inclement, and the 
march a terrible one. The writer met him in Williamsburg, 
on his march : I had not seen him since he entered on active ser- 
vice. The hardships of the winter service and the hard march had 
already told greatly upon him. But while his figure exhibited 
emaciation, and his gait reduced strength, his spirit was still the 
same. His uncomfortable quarters in the mud and cold of the 
inclement season, showed that his mind, in the midst of his daily 
distractions, still indulged in its wonted pursuits : his small store 
of baggage was composed in large part of books, chief among 
them the Bible, and all of a serious and solid character. It was 
touching to see how his heart went back to these more congenial 
objects, while his stern resolution held him to the performance of 
the present task. He could not be induced, for one night even, 
to leave his company or his uncomfortable encampment by the 
prospect of the society of friends, or the enticements of a comfort- 
able night's rest. 

The expectation of the array, as well as of the country, was 
that a great battle would be fought as soon as the forces were 
assembled. It was with this anticipation that Captain Coleman 
left Williamsburg the next day. Besides, his wife and family by 
this movement of the army had been left within the lines of the 
enemy. With so much care and anxiety pressing upon him, amid 
so much public gloom and with so solemn an anticipation, he 
moved forward with the calmness and resolution of one whose 
heart was fixed, whose determination to fulfil his duty was immu- 
table, yet ever cheerful under the hallowing influence of a faith 
that gilded the darkest hours of his life. I quote a letter from 
him at this time to his mother, to show the spirit that wrought 
within him : — 

" Dearest Mother : — I have a little time this Sabbath afternoon, 
and will write a few lines to tell you how strongly at this last 
moment, when no one knows what an hour may bring forth, the 
thought of all the love and tenderness and fostering care bestowed 
in my childhood, comes over your loving son. All that I am, 



181-] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 313 

all the hap))incss I have ever enjoyed, is, I believe, due to you, and 
from you in a great peasuro, under Providence, comes my hope 
of immortal life. I thank God that I can and do love from my 
heart of hearts, all who are near to me — fatlier, mother, grandma 
(God bless her), brothers, sisters, wife, children, all." 

In writing of his wife, separated from him and from her chil- 
dren by a visit to her sick father, and detained now within the 
enemy's lines, he says : — " But it was right for her to go and see 
her dying father, notwithstanding the suffering it involves. Suf- 
fering encountered in the path of duty can never do harm." 

The result of this military movement is known. - The army fell 
back to the line of the Chickahominy. In the midst of the confu- 
sion of this retreat, the reorganization of the army was proceeding. 
The election of officers was made in nearly every Virginia regi- 
ment and company. In this election Captain Coleman was not 
again chosen by his old company ; a result by no means unusual, 
since scarcely an officer who had the rank of captain was reelected, 
no matter what his merit or capacity. Small jealousies and 
intrigues controlled the choice in most instances. As soon as the 
fact of his non-election was known, and his successor could take 
the command. Captain Colemax reported to the Adjutant Gen- 
eral's office. Here it was reasonable to suppose his career as a 
soldier might end. For many whose positions were not so import- 
ant, whose health was not so much iaipaired, whose professions 
did not so imperatively call them back to civil pursuits, military 
life did end ; but not for him whose firm soul had fixed its resolu- 
tion to let nothing prevent the discharge of duty. Captain Cole- 
man could not resolve to give up the service when the fate of his 
native State seemed so doubtful. 

With such views he again offered his services to the Govern- 
ment. His well known character, and his merit as an officer, at 
once gained him not only position, but promotion. He was com- 
missioned Major of Artillery, and placed in com^iand of one of 
the heavy batteries constructed on the hills around Richmond. 
Here, while organizing his command, improving and strengthen- 
ing the fort, and bringing order out of the chaos of the retreat and 
reorganization, he was elected Lieutenant-Colonel of the 1st Regi- 
ment of Virginia Artillery, a position which he promptly accepted 
as it offered a more immediate prospect of active service. 

His command was assigned to no particular division of the 



314 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. [December, 

the army, when the battles around Richmond, in June, 1862, com- 
menced. His regiment was held in reserve, and from it com- 
panies were ordered as occasion required. Colonel Coleman him- 
self, however, as a volunteer, was present at and participated in 
the battle of Cold Harbor. This was his first battle, and a severe 
schooling for a young soldier, as it was one of the bloodiest of the 
series of engagements. He often spoke of the awful grandeur of 
the battle, of the powerful emotions which it produced, but more 
than all of the comfort and sustaining power of a firm faith in 
Christ, amid the horrors of that day. During the engagement, 
by a change in the lines. Colonel Coleman was for a time in the 
hands of the enemy, but managed by coolness and intrepidity to 
extricate himself and rejoin his troops. He was held in reserve 
ao-ain at the terrible battle of Malvern Hill. 

In the period of inaction which occurred after these battles, 
owing to the unwholesome condition of the whole country, cov- 
ered with the unburied dead of both armies. Colonel Coleman 
Avas taken down, as were a great many officers, with typhoid fever, 
which completely disabled him for several months. On the ad- 
vance of the army into Maryland, he Avas only prevented from 
accompanying it by the earnest solicitations of friends, and the 
positive prohibition of his surgeon. As soon as that invasion 
ended, and the army recrossed the Potomac, he again joined his 
command, and along with the army confronted Hooker at Fred- 
ericksburg. Here at length, in the midst of scenes familiar to 
his youth, in the neighborhood of that academy where he com- 
menced his career of usefulness and honor, he w^as to fight his last 
battle and find his croAvn of martyrdom. 

A short time before the battle of Fredericksburg, while riding 
with a friend towards Port Royal, his friend remarked, "In the 
Seven Days' fight around Richmond, I fought literally over my 
father's grave ; my gun being but a few yards from it. If I should 
fall in this war, I should prefer to fall upon such, to me, sacred 
ground." Colonel Coleman replied, " If I am killed in this 
war, I .should prefer to fall here ; for hard by my father lies 
buried." Three days after, not far distant, he received his mortal 
wound. 

In the battle of the 13th of December at Fredericksburg, a part 
of Colonel Coleman's command was ordered up to fill a vacancy 
in the line; with his usual ardor he begged to be allowed to com- 



isea.] THE UKIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 315 

mand it ; ne went forward into the thick of that deadly contest. 
In the evening of that memorable day, after performing his whole 
duty, he was struck by a small bullet just below the knee, when 
in the act of pointing one of his guns. He considered the wound 
so slight that he refused to quit the field ; he remained until the 
close of the battle, and then submitted to be carried to a field hos- 
pital. Here he was found by his brother, Dr. Coleman, and his 
uncle, forgetful as usual of self, and as far as in his power admin- 
istering comfort and sympathy to the wounded and dying around 
him. He regarded his wound as so slight that when asked about 
it, he spoke of it as only a good furlough; but to the surgeon's 
eye it seemed more serious, and there was a momentary resolution 
to amputate the limb. This would doubtless have been done but 
for his own conviction of the insignificance of his wound, and the 
hurry and confusion and overwhelming engagements of the sul'- 
geons on what seemed more pressing cases. 

From the battle-field Colonel Colp^man was removed to Edge 
Hill, the residence of his brother-in-law, Samuel Schooler, Esq., 
near Guinney's Depot, in Caroline county, almost within sight of his 
old home. Concord Academy. Here he was speedily joined by 
his wife and other members of his family. In a short time his 
case began to exhibit unfavorable symptoms. The hardships of 
the service, his recent recovery from a long and wasting disease, 
and the reaction from the intense excitement of the battle, all 
tended to lower his vitality and to retard the process of healing. 
Tiie wound took on inflammation, virulent erysipelas ensued, 
accompanied with sufferings too terrible almost for endurance. 
His condition soon became hopeless; but he lingered on from 
week to week, tenderly nursed by his sorrowing friends and fam- 
ily, bearing with patience and fortitude for ninety-eight weary 
days, unexampled pain, till in his Master's good time he crowned 
an honored life with a Christian death. 

Thus passed away in the flower of his age, in the midst of 
liis useful career, one of the brightest and truest of Virginia's 
suns. Few men who fell in those dark and bloody days, were 
more widely or sincerely bemoaned. In that time of affliction, 
when there was scarce a house or cottage in the limits of the State 
but had its empty chair at the fireside, there was a universal 
expression of sorrow at the death of this good man. He had 
friends in every rank of life : his profession had made him 



116 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[December, 



widely known in his own State and tliroughont the South. His 
death Avas deplored by them as a personal and a public calamity. 
The notices of his death which appeared in the public prints at 
the time, express the appreciation of his worth by his country- 
men, the grief of friends, and the general admiration for his many 
noble and generous qualities. He died on the 21st of March, 
1863, in the 37th year of his age. His remains were removed for 
interment to his old home in Hanover county ; and there, in the 
opening spring, amid the whispering pines, with tears of family 
and friends, followed by the regrets of all, high and low, who 
ever knew him, they committed him to the hallowed ground 
where he sleeps with his fathers. 

Not every life worthy of record is so filled with dramatic 
situations and stirring incidents as to render it interesting to the 
mass of mankind ; but to a thoughtful and philosophic mind, it is 
not in these external circumstances that exists the interest or the 
influence of a life well spent. Were the greater physical phe- 
nomena of nature, the rarer instances of human greatness, the 
sole means afforded by God for impressing us with the forces of 
nature or humanity, we should be poor indeed. As in nature, 
the deeper we dive into her secrets the more thoroughly we explore 
the effects of causes apparently insignificant, the more truly are we 
enabled to appreciate them and to admire their wonderful results; 
so too, when we descend from the higher examples of human 
action and contemplate the true influences of the quiet workers 
of society, the more thoroughly do we comprehend the value of 
those lives and characters whose actions and course seem most 
unobtrusive. This man's lot was cast in a time of great events, 
among men whose acts will be the theme of the historian, whose 
sphere was conspicuous, and for the many the blaze of these more 
striking contemporary events and characters will quite eclipse his 
humbler path and achievements; but when we contemplate his 
life, and his influence for good not only upon those who were 
brought within his immediate sphere, but upon society, much will 
be found that we should not willingly let die. In his character, 
his actions, his life, and his death, he is alike entitled to our 
admiration and gratitude. His character, adorned with noble 
qualities and lofty virtues, his actions productive of good for his 
State and age, his life affording a shining example of patriotism 
and heroic self-devotion, his death illustrious by the glorious 



1S62.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 317 



triumph of Christian faitli, M-ere surely not devoid of instruction 
to every reflecting mind. I cannot close this short memoir witli- 
out devoting some space to the illustration of this thought, as well 
as to a general estimate of Prof. Colemax'.s character. 

Prof. Coi.E^iAX was endowed by nature with superior intel- 
lectual faculties, a memory retentive and accurate, an imagina- 
tion vivid and suggestive, a judgment sound and discriminating, 
and reason clear and logical. These had been carefully trained 
and developed by an education as thorough as the best institutions 
of learning in this country, and efforts earnest and unremitting on 
his part, could give. Of this his success as a scholar is sufficient 
proof The training and acquisitions of severer studies Avere sup- 
plemented by an extensive course of reading in classic and modern 
literature, which gave to his culture elegance and breadth, while 
it exercised and improved his taste, naturally refined and delicate. 
His powers were completely under his control. That flexibility 
of mind and power of concentrated application, which, as a youth, 
had niade him a successful student, placing him in the front of 
his classes, were not less effective in the undertakings of his man- 
hood. To whatever work he was called he was found equal, 
because he gave his undivided energies to its complete accomplish- 
ment. So that if it may not be said that he had genius, yet at 
least he was not only free from its eccentricities but possessed in 
an eminent degree those superior powers of application, persever- 
ance and energy, that complete control of vigorous and well- 
developed faculties, which in effect make the nearest approach to it. 

In his own peculiar professional province — the Latin language 
and literature — he was probably as advanced and as ripe a 
scholar as any man of his age in this country. Pie had devoted 
much time to it as a youth, had taught it for man^ years daily, 
had applied himself to the careful study of its philosophy and 
structure, its philology and literature, so that his knowledge of 
the subject was thorough as well as extensive, and he was found 
no unworthy successor of that profound scholar whose scat he was 
called to occu})y. His tastes, too, led him rather toward the ])ur- 
»uit of literature than of science ; as a student, he had always 
|)referred the languages ; so that inclination as well as peculiar 
study combined to render him excellent in his speciality. It 
often happens that exclusive attention to any one study developes 
the mind too much in a given direction, and gives rise to views 



318 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[D'occmbcr, 



contracted or disproportioned. But such was not the case with 
him. His mind was well balanced, his culture well proportioned. 
He was no one-sided man, or man of one idea, but he had a gen- 
eral and scholarly acquaintance with other branches of learning 
which gave breadth and catliolicity to his views; this general 
culture was the setting to his specialty which made it the more 
shining and useful. 

As an instructor Prof. Coleman was eminently successful both 
with boys and with more advanced students. In his exposition of 
a subject he was clear and luminous, with singular powers of illus- 
tration. His well-stored mind furnished him "with a store of 
analogies which he used with such peculiar aptitude as to supply 
the place, in many respects, of the most cogent and logical statement. 
His manner was earnest, even vehement, claiming the fullest atten- 
tion ; so that while he wrought with his whole soul, and poured 
out the stores of his mind, his Iiearers Avere in a condition more 
readily to apprehend him and appropriate his teaching. 

Prof. Coleman has left no evidence in the form of literary 
production of his fine endowments and culture. This would 
seeiu singular as well as contradictory were there not a good 
reason for it. In his short and busy life there was no time for 
hira to devote to composition. Up to the time of his election to 
the professorship in the University, his whole time was necessarily 
given to his large school. No man without trial can appreciate 
properly the amount of actual labor which such a school as his 
imposed. On his shoulders as Principal all the responsibility and 
a large portion of the labor rested. He directed and controlled 
the conduct and studies of eighty boys, provided for their daily 
wants, taught an equal amount with any of his assistants, cor- 
rected exercises, kept the boys' accounts, corresponded with parents 
and guardians, managed their finances and his own. Under such 
harassing engagements, but little time could be found for literary 
production. One chief reason for his accepting the position of 
Professor, was that it would relieve him of a part of this burden. 
In a pecuniary point of view, his professorship was not compar- 
able' to his position as Principal of Hanover Academy, and 
scarcely superior in point of honor and distinction. He himself 
assigned as a reason for the move, the fact that his mind seemed 
almost petrifying under the perpetual, monotonous round of his 
school duties, and that for the sake of more leisure and better 



:8631 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 319 

opportunities for intellectual and spiritual culture, he was willing 
to sacrifice pecuniary advantages in assuming his new position. 
His course at the University was too brief for the realization of 
his own hopes and those of his friends, since he occupied the posi- 
tion only long enough to become familiar with its requirements. 
But even in this short time, and with the attention required for a 
class of more than a hundred students, he had commenced the 
work; in his moments of leisure he prosecuted the study of 
German, and entered upon a course of reading in general litera- 
ture. 

The mention of his work at Hanover Academy brings me to 
consider what may justly be in a great measure attributed to Mr. 
CoLEMAX, namely, the improvement of the general tone of educa- 
tion in his State. 

The Academy established by him in Hanover county, though a 
private enterprise, produced a marked influence upon the character 
of the schools in Virginia, and upon school education. Previous- 
ly to that time, good high schools were few in number, and were 
not taught upon any general plan or system. This sciiool was 
established exclusively with a view to prepare students for the 
University of Virginia, whose text-books were adopted and plan of 
instruction pursued. The student was prepared for any class he 
proposed to take in the University, and in many cases the course 
at the school embraced the entire course at the University. In 
consequence, the students from this school were not only found to 
be best prepared for the University, but many of them took high 
positions in their classes and were graduated with distinction. 
Many of these students on leaving college, seeing that Mr. Cole- 
MAX had not only made teaching profitable, but honorable, aban- 
doning the beaten track of the learned professions, adopted that 
of teaching instead. Plence, by the time that Mr. Coleman was 
promoted to the University, there was already quite a number of 
high schools in different parts of the State established on his 
plan. This not only produced a higher order of training in the 
scliools, but a higher grade of preparation in students for the 
University. Moreover, as these schools were all on the Univer- 
sity plan, there was a greater concentration towards that institu- 
tion from year to year, and in a period of ten years or more its 
attendance rose from two hundred and fifty to more than six hun- 
dred students. From the superior preparation of the students 



320 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[December, 



another important result flowed, that the University was enabled 
to advance the grade of its scholarship and to extend its already 
expanded course. The minor colleges felt the same influence, 
since in order to maintain themselves it was necessary to rise above 
the high schools. Again, the increased advantages afforded by 
the University, and the higher grade of scholarship required for 
its honors, reflected in turn upon the schools, so that it may be safely 
affirmed that the advancement in the type of education in Vir- 
ginia in the space of ten years while Coleman was teacher, was 
equal to that of any double period preceding The concentration 
of attention upon the University of Virginia, caused to a con- 
siderable degree by the establishment of such schools in different 
parts of the State by its graduates, the number of the alumni of 
the University disseminated throughout the State and the South 
in all ranks and professions, has made that institution and its 
advantages conspicuous, given it a commanding position among 
the collegiate institutions of the South and placed it on a permaiv 
ent basis. The State appropriation, once grudgingly bestowed, is 
now eagerly extended by the loving hands of her foster-children, 
and they are to-day a band of brothers united in advancing her 
interests and illustrating the benefits of her establishment. It 
were saying too much to attribute all these happy results to the 
efforts of Mr. Coleman, or to say that he saw them or antici- 
pated them in his early labors ; much is due to tlie general advance- 
ment of the country, to the well-known and well-deserved reputa- 
tion of the officers of the University ; but good work well done 
will bring forth good fruit; the events spoken of above are in the 
sequence of cause and effect ; and there can be no reasonable doubt 
that the fortunate impulse which, happily seconded, has resulted 
so advantageously, was given by this quiet worker. 

In estimating the character of this man, it is hard for one who 
knew him and who loved him, not to deal in seeming hyperbole; 
for to know him was to love him. His clay, so kindly tempered 
by nature's hand, had been wrought by culture into delightful 
harmony. His sympathies were so large, his affections so true, 
his disposition so genial, his manners so gentle, his virtues so con- 
spicuous, yet so unobtrusive that no one could escape the spell of 
his influence. Qualities of head and heart combined to make 
him a most charming companion either for men of intellect or of 
feeling. These good qualities were irradiated by a deep religious 



1863.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 321 



faith that moulded every thought and shaped every action of his 
life. Few men were so firm in religious convictions as he, yet so 
free from all bigotry. While he belonged to a denomination of 
Christians somewhat exclusive in their tenets, this caused no nar- 
row sectarianism and did not limit the broad catholicity of his 
views. At Hanover Academy he employed ministers of several 
denominations to hold tiie regular services for his students, in the 
choice of whom he was guided rather by Christian principle and 
practice than by denomination or sect. If prominence should 
be given to one feature of his character more than another, it 
would be his high sense of duty. When the proper path of duty 
was made plain, when his reason was convinced, his sense of riglit 
satisfied, he took his resolve and pursued his course without one 
thought of self. Says Major Venable, one of his earliest and 
latest friends, "His conceptions of duty were as true and direct 
as his performance of it was thorough and exact." This sense of 
duty would never allow him as a boy to neglect a lesson, as a man 
and a teacher it would never allow him to shirk his full share of 
work. He was fond of society, and particularly of that of friends 
whom he had known his lifelong; yet how often has he risen 
from such a circle of which he was the charm, and marched ofT 
to his treadmill, as he called it, the correcting of students' exer- 
cises, or some other equally imperative but unattractive task. He 
was fond of books, of lettered ease, of literary pursuits, of culti- 
vated society ; he was eminently domestic, devoted to his fireside 
and its sacred delights; he had been nurtured tenderly, had never 
suffered hardship or sickness untended, hunger, cold or want 
unsatisfied ; he had troops of friends and devoted kindred in whose 
society he delighted to live and whose love kindled his very soul ; 
yet when his country called him in her hour of need, when he 
saw her bleeding under the heel of the invader, when the duty of 
patriotic self-devotion set itself plainly before him, at its sacred 
bidding he laid all these things aside — books, fireside, kindred, 
friends, and with a full consciousness of the sacrifice, without com- 
pulsion or persuasion, embraced a life of hardship, toil, Avant and 
danger, alike uncongenial with his habits and unsuited to his tastes. 
No ardor for military glory urged him to this course, no desire to 
win the applause of men, but simply that sense of duty which 
actuated him throughout his life. He doubtless thought there 
was a chance of his surviving the hardship and the battle, but his 
21 



322 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL, 



[December, 



own good sense must have told him that his chances were as one 
to a thousand. Yet neither the solicitations of friends nor the sor- 
row of separation from his loved home and family, nor hardship, 
nor sickness, nor wounds, nor death had power to shake the 
settled purpose of his soul. On his death-bed he still said if he 
recovered he must see the end of the war. In such noble self- 
devotion he has left an example which should place his name 
among the worthies of ancient story and inspire the youth of Vir- 
ginia to the latest generations. 

Mr. Coleman was ever ready to assist with heart and hand 
every praiseworthy enterprise. He gave of his means abun- 
dently to all charitable and religious objects. He educated many 
young men at his school free of charge, and assisted others at the 
University. He was one who did not willingly let his charities 
be known, and many of his good deeds go unremembered among 
men, as they are unrecorded. 

In his domestic relations no man was more charming: the idol 
of his little children, the kind and loving husband. There was 
a feminine gentleness in his disposition that eminently fitted him 
for all fireside enjoyments. His culture and refinement found the 
highest exercise and sweetest gratification in adorning the family 
altar. In all the relations of son, brother, kinsman, he was a 
model of excellence : his heart was ever open to all tlie kindly 
influences of clanship. In the days of his trial, when disease had 
subdued the man, these deeper feelings of his nature assumed a 
higher tone : in the sacred communings of mother and son, hus- 
band or wife, he found a consolation unspeakable, and reaped the 
rich harvest of these treasures of the soul. 

In his wider associations he was courteous and afi'able. He was 
remarkable for his conversational ability, which made his society 
attractive, even to strangers. Hence it happened that few men had 
a more extensive acquaintance or were more favorably known. 

But as a friend, no man Avas more true, more sympathizing, 
more congenial. With him friendship was no weak affection, to 
be faded by separation or severed by time. When he once gave 
his affections, he was not easily changed by conduct even unseemly. 
His sympathy was so large, that even in the midst of faults he 
could discern the remains of good, and fixing his attention on 
that, he threw the mantle of charity over the failings. Men may 
have fallen away from him, but he was always constant and the 



1«62.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 323 



same. While the affability of his manner and the charm of his 
society attracted many, it was only to a few that he delivered up 
his true affection. These he grappled to his soul with hooks of 
steel. To such as knew him in this fine phase of his character, 
it were needless to recall the charm of his society, — his cheerful 
temper, genial humor, the beaming eye, the glowing countenance, 
tlie ready sympathy which made reunions with friends so delight- 
ful to them and to him, as he said, the green spots in his life. 

The following tribute to his memory from the pen of John K. 
Thompson, Esq., one who knew him well, is added to fill up this 
skctcli, so imperfect : — 

" It was my happy fortune to know Lewis Minor Cole- 
man well during a period of years which commenced with his 
University life and ended only with his martyrdom in the cause 
of his country; and this intimacy but tended to strengthen the 
affection I felt for him at college, and to enhance the admiration 
which was there excited by his intellectual endowments. Few, 
very few men, redeem in later years the promise they may have 
given i'n the curriculum of the University. But it was a charac- 
teristic of Coleman that he made every acquisition the stepping- 
stone to something yet higher and nobler beyond, and his under- 
graduate honors had no value in his eyes other than as associated 
with those instructions which enabled him to reach forward to a 
still more thorough and exhaustive knowledge. 

" His gifts were rich and varied. He had a keen perception of 
the ludicrous and a lively enjoyment of mirthful sallies, and his 
conversation was at times lighted up by flashes of wit ; but the 
laughter he excited was always chaste, and he never sacrificed the 
feelings of others to a bon-mot. There was too much charity and 
kindness in his disposition for this, and his ambition soared far 
above the reputation of a brilliant conversationalist ; so much 
heart had he indeed, that humor predominated largely over wit — 
a quiet, gentle humor, like that of Charles Lamb, that broke out 
in sunny gleams over the barrenest topics. He had also a 
delicate sense of the beautiful in art, in literature, and in the natu- 
ral world. He was an industrious reader, and his mind drew to 
itself all that was true and elevated and wholesome in whatever 
he read, rejecting the false and the noxious, as the bee draws honey 
even from poisonous flowers ; and a memory singularly retentive, 
coming just here to his aid, he kept in his mental warehouse, as 



324 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [December, 

weapons are kept in an armory, all the treasures of poetry and 
philosophy ready for instant use. All wild and romantic scenery 
he greatly enjoyed. I recollect to have met him once, just after 
his return from a trip up the Saguenay in East Canada, and his 
descriptions of what he had seen were full of an unstudied grace 
and eloquence such as is rarely found in books of travel. 

"In the line of usefulness he had marked out for himself, he 
reached the highest possible eminence, and deserves as a teacher 
to be ranked with Dr. Arnold of Rugby, whom, it was said, he 
had made his model. I have been with him at Hanover Acad- 
emy, both in his hours of teaching and his hours of play, and 
seen him among his pupils, beloved, never feared, always respec- 
ted, the master of their confidence and their affections. His sym- 
pathies were with them in the play-ground and in the recitation- 
room. His temj)er was the sweetest, and his discipline at once the 
most kindly and unbending of any Dominie that ever sat in 
magisterial authority over a school-room. The fruits of his sys- 
tem had already manifested themselves before his death, in a 
higher standard of academical training throughout Virginia. 

" As a private gentleman, as tlie warmly attached friend, tlie 
delightful companion, the sincere, humble Christian, carrying his 
life in his hand when his country called for it, I need not speak 
of him. I cannot think of his early death, a sacrifice to this Avar, 
without recalling the remarkable words of Lord Clai'endon, in 
concluding his lofty eulogy on Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland, 
wherein the historian speaks of that lamented nobleman as ' hav- 
ing so much despatched the business of life, that the oldest rarely 
attained to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not 
into the world with more innocency ;' and we may add, slightly 
varying the language of the sentence, that ' whoso leads such a 
life, need not' care in what manner or at what age it be taken 
from him.'" 

What more than all else gave to his character beauty and sym- 
metry, was his religion, his deep, abiding faith. While, as has 
been remarked, no bigotry, no sectarianism, no austerity of man- 
ner was visible in him, this lofty feeling, like a subtle aroma, 
plainly pervaded his life; his actions and conduct were ever shapen 
by religious precepts. His sympathy was alive to every exertion 
in the cause of Christ ; he gave freely of his time and his means. 
He delighted in the service of God. While at the University 



1£62.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 325 



of Virginia, though his duties were very onerous, as he had no 
assistant, lie never failed to attend the prayer-meetings of the stu- 
dents, not only taking part but sometimes leading in their devo- 
tional exercises. At the risk of interfering with more congenial 
services, he consented to become the superintendent of the Sabbath 
School for colored children and adults, and not even his higher and 
more pleasing duties were more faithfully performed. As God 
had blessed him, he was abundant in his private charities ; he was 
a benefactor to the poor all around his home in Hanover, and was 
remembered by them reverently and aifectionately. But above 
all was he abundant in that higher and holier charity which placed 
him in harmony with all that is lowliest, while it raised him to all 
that is purest and holiest. No man's faith was firmer or more 
consoling, and no one ever gave an example more shining of that 
beautiful influence of Christianity which, while withdrawing us 
from the world, leaves no trace of asceticism or austerity, but 
expands the heart with a larger, purer and higher sympathy for 
our kind ; while weaning us from frivolities and absorbing earthly 
pursuits, fixes our aflPections upon objects more serious, more use- 
ful and more virtuous, without narrowing our sympathies with 
the pursuits of men ; which, amid the cares and troubles of life, 
gives cheerful contentment, and, in sorrow and adversity, hopeful 
patience. Such faith, such example was his. 

No day and no undertaking was commenced by him without 
invoking God's blessing. It has been the writer's privilege to 
hear his earnest appeals to the Father in the family circle, to 
witness his reverent attention in public worship, to see him 
morning and evening with head uncovered and uplifted hands, 
invoke the blessing of God on his company and the cause, and 
His protection in the hour of danger. In speaking of these re- 
ligious exercises at the head of his company, a brotiier officer, 
^ Captain Kirkpatrick, characterizes them as " direct, earnest, deep 
and fervent." "I shall never forget," says he, "the prayer he 
offered on the sad and memorable Sabbath morning Avhen we 
commenced our retreat from Centreville. His heart was very 
tender and very full, and it seemed to unburden itself into the 
sympathizing ear of that Saviour who is God over all, blessed 
forever, and who yearns over all his troubled children witli such 
unspeakable tenderness." In the day of battle, he often said, 
there was nothing so full of assurance to him amid its terrors and 



326 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [December, 

its dangers, as the thought of Christ, his promises and his mer- 
cies. One of his brother oflBcers remarked that the earnestness 
and sincerity of his ejaculatory prayers upon the battle-field con- 
vinced him that " the soul of Colonel Coleman was always fixed 
upon the one sure hope and source of strength." 

" AVe were drawn up in line of battle," says Captain Kirk- 
patrick, " on the eastern bank of the Chickahominy, with the 
enemy advancing in front, on a Sabbath morning in April or 
May, 1862. Captain Coleman approached where I was lying, 
took from my hands the Bible I had been reading, and turning to 
the 84th Psalm, read it and commented upon its beautiful verses. 
I can now recall the earnest, longing tones in which he repeated 
' How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts ! My soul 
longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord : my heart 
and my flesh crieth out for the living God !' He drew a parallel 
between David's condition when he composed that Psalm, and ours 
as we had been driven by our enemies, and spoke of the wonder- 
ful adaptedness of God's word, when even such circumstances as 
those around us only the more forcibly impressed its truths and 
beauties upon the soul. He then went on to speak in glowing 
terms of the sweet privileges of God's House, the solemn assem- 
blies of His saints, their blissful communion with Him in all 
the ordinances of His worship. The impression made upon me 
by that reading and those running comments Avill never be effaced 
from my memory, and while my soul retains its powers, the 84th 
Psalm will be associated in my mind with Lewis Minor Cole- 
man and that beautiful but anxious Sabbath morning." 

Most of all did this fervent Christian spirit manifest itself in 
his last period of suffering. It was the writer's fortune to visit 
him during this time. In the wasted and emaciated frame, the 
sharpened features on which suffering had traced its deep lines, 
none but the eye of an intimate acquaintance could have recog- 
nized the man. All was changed except the spirit that still 
looked from his eyes. In the intervals of pain he was still cheer- 
ful, still hopeful in spite of the knowledge of his almost hopeless 
condition. His heart was still loving to all; with his friends he 
still expanded into something of the old genial warmth that 
flashed into his eye and face the old kindly glance. In the agony 
of suffering which held him in torture and sleepless wakefulness, 
his patience and fortitude, his grateful thanks to liis attendants, 



1362] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 327 

the upturned eye in silent supplication, the earnest spoken appeal 
to Heaven for support, touched every beholder to the heart. In 
his troubled sleep, his mind ever wandered among the friends and 
occupations of the peaceful past, or the sterner and sadder scenes 
of his later life. At one time loved names trembled on his lips, 
again he recited as if from his tribune, and then the short, sharp 
word of command would burst from his lips, as if in the midst 
of sweeter dreams the dread realities of his later life mino-led 
like a troubled current. 

As time passed on and the faint hope of even the most sanguine 
faded away, the darkened chamber in which that pure and saintly 
existence was waning away seemed illuminated by rays from the 
very gate of Heaven. When told that his end approached, the 
intelligence wrought no change, infused no terror in one whose 
faith was anchored so deep. He spoke of death not only with 
calmness and resignation, but with cheerfulness and the fulness 
of Christian hope. Said he to his weeping friends, " It is but a 
short trip ; it is only taking a little journey, then safe and happy 
forever." " I had hoped to do good while living; but I may do 
more good by dying than by living." He repeated those noble 
and consoling words from Cor. xv., '' This corruptible must put 
on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality," and 
rejoiced that he should soon realize that glory. He sent messages 
to his absent friends by name. He arranged his Avorldly aifairs 
with clearness and exactness. Calling his wife to his bedside, he 
committed his children to her care, and them all to the protection 
of Almighty God, and with eloquent words pronounced a eulogy 
upon her who had so blessed his life with love and joy, and fer- 
vently thanked her for all her love and the domestic happiness 
with which she had crowned his life on earth. He did not forget 
his commanders. "Tell General Lee and GeneralJackson," said 
he, in almost the words of another soldier Christian, "they know 
how Christian soldiers can fight : I wish they could see now how a 
Christian soldier can die."* 

*In communicating this message to General Jackson, Dr. Coleman wrote:— "I 
tloubi not, General, that the Intimate acquaintance witli yourself whicli my brother 
desired on eartlj will be vouclisafed to Ijini in Heaven, and tliat wlieu your career 
of usefulness here is ended, in the green pastures and by the still waters of a brighter 
sphere you and he will meet in sweet communion and fellowship, and that your 
earthly acquaintance will be purltiod and i)erfected into an eternal friendship." 

General Jackson responded :— " Had your brother lived, it was my purpose to be- 
come better acquainted witli liim. I saw much less of him than I desired. I look 
beyond this life to an existence where I hope to know him better. 

" Very truly, your friend, " T. J. Jackson." 

Within five or six weeks these anticipations were realized, wlien tlie hero " passed 
over the river." 



328 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. [December. 

In those last hours his prayer was for release from pain and 
suifering. " Lord Jesus, come quickly ! " Writhing in pain, he ex- 
pressed the fear that God's face was hid from him, but shortly 
after he recalled the doubt. " Doctor, you remember I said I 
did not feel God's presence with me. Now I know that He is 
near me, and I feel the breath of the angels' wings." Waking 
from a troubled sleep and turning to his brother, in semi-uncon- 
sciousness he said : " Malcolm, did I die as a Christian soldier 
ought to die?" Then recovering his consciousness he said, " I 
thought I had died on the battle-field." 

In his last moments of consciousness he requested his friends 

to sing the hymn " Jesus, I love thy charming name." As the 

last verse — 

" I'll speak the honors of Thy name 
With mj' last laboring breath ; 
And dj'ing, clasp Thee in my arms, 
The antidote of death " — 

was sung by the tearful voices of his friends, with faltering, dying 
tones he joined in them. Some said to him, " You will soon be 
in Heaven ; are you willing to go ? " " Perfectly willing ; certainly 
I am." These were his last words, and so he passed to his rest. 

To his friends and contemporaries, the contemplation of the 
early death of one to them so dear, to his country so useful, so 
full of promise, should not be all of sorrow and pain ; they should 
thank God and take courage that an example of character so ten- 
der and gracious, of life so true and good, of a death so triutrtph- 
snt and glorious, had been consecrated in their recollection for 
imitation. From such a life, from such a death, a thousand glo- 
ries rise to ennoble human nature and to point mankind to virtue. 
In time to come his name will be coupled in letters with that of 
Arnold, and in arms with those of his fellow-soldiers in Christ 
and on earth, Gardiner, Havelock, and saintly Vicars ; and when 
his loved State shall gather up her jewels, among tlie names of 
those who, in a wider theatre and in more conspicuous positions, 
have acted well their parts, she will write high on the roll of fume 
and encircle with an unfading wreath the name of Lewis Minor 
Coleman, the scholar, the soldier, and the Christian. 



END OF VOLUME II. 



The Ui^iyersity Memoeial. 

VOLUME III — 1868. 



HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER, 

Lieuteuant-Colonel, 15th Virginia Infantry. 

The subject of this brief sketch, Henry St. George Tucker, 
the son of that eminent Virginian who served his State so long and 
well as Judge, and as Professor of Law in her University, Judge 
Henry St. George Tucker, was born in AVinchester, Virginia, Jan- 
uary 5th, 1828. He entered AVashington College (Lexington, Va.) 
at the age of fifteen, and after spending one year in that institu- 
tion, came to the University in 1844. He here pursued success- 
fully for two years the studies of the literary and scientific 
departments, and graduated in several of the leading schools. In 
1845-6 he was one of three graduates in the school of Matlie- 
matics. At the close of that session he delivered the Valedictory 
Oration before the Jefferson Society. He exhibited in his course 
fine powers of acquisition, and, for his early age, remarkable lite- 
rary talent and culture. In his University career St. Tucker 
(the name by which his friends best knew him) was without an 
enemy. His wit, his genial temperament, gentle disposition, and 
high social qualities made him the beloved companion and friend 
of Harrison, Coleman, Thornton, and of marty other noble spirits 
on whom, as on him, our Alma Mater seemed to bestow her richest 
gifts, that their sacrifice in the prime of glorious manhood might 
be the more costly. 

Having completed his academic course in the University, he 
studied Law in William and Mary College, under the tuition ©f 
his uncle. Judge N. Beverly Tucker, Professor of Law in that 
institution, and in 1848 came to the bar in Charlottesville. Here he 
married Miss Lizzie Gilmer, eldest daughter of Governor Tiiomas 
.Walker Gilmer. In the session of 1850-51, St. George Tucker 
was elected Clerk of the Senate of Virginia, which position he 



330 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [January, 

filled with credit and efficiency. In the session of 1852-3 he was 
elected Clerk of the House of Delegates, and served with great 
acceptance for four or five years. His talents and popularity gave 
him remarkable power in the legislative body. In 1857 he gave 
up this post and undertook the duties of instructor in Mathe- 
matics (for which liis mathematical education, under the lamented 
Courtenay, had well qualified him), in an academy at Ashland, in 
Hanover county. After teaching for two years, Tucker went 
back to the profession of law, beginning the practice again in 
Hanover county. The war found him occupied with his profes- 
sion, living in his quiet home near Ashland. 

It was eminently fitting that a son of the noble stock which 
had given so many distinguished patriots to the service of Vir- 
ginia in times past, should go promptly at her bidding to do and 
die for our old Mother in the hour of her peril and her need. 
Captain St. George Tucker entered the field with the first 
breaking out of hostilities in command of the " Ashland Grays," 
a company composed of his neighbors and friends. This company 
was attached to the 15tli Virginia regiment under Colonel Thomas 
P. August. In this command Captain Tucker did honorable 
service in the Peninsula in '61 and '62, under General Magruder, 
the 15tl\ Virginia regiment forming a part of Semmes' brigade. 
In the Seven Days' battles around Richmond, in 1862, the 15th 
Virginia was engaged in the attack on the rear-guard of McClel- 
lan's army on the 29tli June, at Savage Station, by McLaw's 
division, under the orders of General Magruder. Again Captain 
Tucker commanded his company in the charge made by Magru- 
der's division at Malvern Hill in the battle of July 1st, where 
our brave men went forward under the most destructive artillery 
fire of the war, and notwithstanding the havoc made in their ranks 
by the storm of shot and shell, kept up the unequal contest until 
night closed over the battle-field, and slept on their arms within 
one hundred yards of the enemy's guns. In this battle Major 
Walker, of the 15th Virginia regiment, was killed, and Captain 
Tucker was promoted to majority and subsequently to the lieuten- 
ant-colonelcy of the regiment. But the hardships and exposure of 
a Confederate soldier's life had done their fatal work on a consti- 
tution not naturally very strong. In the summer of 1862, Colonel 
Tucker left the field a dying man. He lingered for a season, 
and died January 2-4th, 1863, in Charlottesville, where his family 
then resided. 



1863.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL, 331 

In early life Colonel Tucker had strong religions convictions, 
but these became apparently clouded as he grew up to manhood, 
but never lost their entire power over his mind. For more than 
a year before his death he had been turning his mind to religion, 
and died in the membership of the Presbyterian Church at Char- 
lottesville, in the faith of a sincere and humble Christian. 

St. George Tucker inherited in a hio-h decree the brilliant 
talents of his family. He had strong poetic gifts, great humor, 
deep sensibility, and an ardent love of the beautiful in nature, 
art, and literature. As a writer, he displayed much taste and 
ability. All that he wrote was characterized by purity, simplicity, 
and elegance of diction. In 1857, he published a novel, under 
the title of" Hansford, a Tale of Bacon's Eebellion,"* a charming 
picture of the domestic life of the Cavaliers of the Old Dominion, 
interwoven with many passages of power and pathos. From its 
pages flash out the true Virginian love of liberty, and scorn and 
hatred for the minions of unscrupulous power. In one of its 
chapters the author makes his hero, Hansford, in an hour of dis- 
aster and peril, give utterance to sentiments which, a few short 
years afterwards, served well, alas ! to tell the faith and fate of the 
author — 

" Though tyranuy, with bloody laws, 

May dig my early grave, 
Yet death, wheu met in freedom's cause, 

Is sweetest to the brave. 
Wedded to her, 
Without a fear, 

I'll mount her funeral pile, 
Welcome the death 
Which seals my faith. 

And meet it with a smile." 

The friends of Colonel Tucker's college life and early manhood, 
loved him well. He was ever confiding, kind and affectionate, 
and those who were attracted to him by his genial wit and humor, 
and his bright, cheerful disposition, became bound to him through 
his sterling qualities in the ties of true and lasting friendship. 
By them will his memory be cherished, as a friend and comrade, 
as a brave and unselfish patriot, who loved Virginia, and gav-e 
his life for her; a costly sacrifice of talents and attainments 
upon the altar of her liberties. 

*Tliis novel was republished in 1801, by Peterson, of Philadelphia, under the title 
of " The Devoted Bride." 



332 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [Jaauary, 

JOHN HERNDON MAURY, 

Lieutenant and A. D. C. to General D. H. Maury. 

Of all the precious jewels that we lost in the war, there was 
none more comely than John H. Maury. Perhaps there was 
not a single sacrifice, in that dreadful struggle, made under such 
a veil of sadness and impenetrable mystery as that which sur- 
rounds his death. 

He was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, October 21st, 1842. 
His mother Avas the daughter of the late Dabney Herndon, of 
that place, and his father was Lieutenant M. F. Maury, who was, 
about that time, ordered to the post at Washington, in whicli 
those services were rendered to commerce and navigation, and to 
the cause of science, that won for the National Observatory its 
former renown. He was the fourth of eight children, two sisters 
and a brother being his elders. 

The Observatory continued to be the home of the family from 
July, 1842, until April, 1861, when Virginia withdrew from the 
Union, and called upon her sons in the Army and Navy of the 
United States, to quit it, and rally around her own standard. 
The subject of this memoir w^as then in his nineteenth year, and 
a student at the University of Virginia, for which he had been 
chiefly prepared at the school of that excellent teacher and accom- 
plished gentleman, Mr. Bowen, of Georgetown. 

Adhering to the principles which had been instilled into him at 
home, never to seeh employment in the public service, lie decided 
at an early period, notwithstanding a slight impediment of speecli, 
which, however, he hoped to overcome, to adopt the profession 
of the law. 

To strengthen his constitution — for, like all the family, he 
suffered much from the miasmatic pestilence which enveloped tlie 
Observatory, — and to give him a closer insight into the practical 
workings of the profession he was about to adopt, he was sent in 
the summer of 1859, to Newburgh, on the Hudson, where he be- 
came an inmate of the family of the early'friend and preceptor 
of his father, William C Hasbrouck, then, and now, the leading 
lawyer of that place. He left the Observatory for New York, 
July 21st, 1859, and on that day, commenced a diary, in which 



\gg3.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 333 

he wrote daily. It is now before us, with the entry in large let- 
ters on the title-page : 

" STRICTLY PRIVATE." 

Most of the family papers and correspondence were lost during 
the war, and it is upon a few stray letters and the first volume 
of this diary, that we have to rely for incidents tending to show 
the character of this amiable youth. Comely in person, and gentle 
in disposition, he possessed all those noble and ennobling traits 
which dignify manhood, and which seemed to be so blended in him 
that nothing more was left for his j^arents to desire. 

Arriving in New York alone, his first adventure was the loss 
of his trunk through the negligence of the Express, and it was 
several weeks before he recovered it. Mr. Hasbrouck asked him 
for an inventory of its contents so that he might make reclama- 
tion upon the company, and we find this entry in his faithful 
diary: — " July 27th. No news of my trunk. I have made out 
an inventory of all the articles, with the prices as far as I can 
recollect. I was so afraid of cheating, I cheated myself." 

" August 1, 1859. Had a long visit from young to-day 

(a new acquaintance) ; he wants me to make him a visit. At the 
door he renewed his invitation, but in such a way that I will not 
accept it. ' Mother,' said he, ' is going away the latter part of this 
week; then you can come and stay Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 
and then you can do as you please.' I wonder if that's the way 
of Yankee invitations." 

He had not been at Newburgli more than a week or two before 
he was recalled to the Observatory, one of his sisters being dan- 
gerously ill. " At home, Aug. 8. They say Nannie is quite bright 
this morning, but still I am not permitted" to see her. I go and 
peep at her through the door, but that is all. I have been passing 
the day reading ' Ivanhoe.' Getting too fond of novel-reading; 
must stop it." 

^'^ Sunday, Aug. 21. Saw my old school-fellows, John and T. 
N., at Church to-day. I was in hopes that John Avould not go to 
the University of Virginia until next session, so that I could 
measure myself against him. But these hopes are all knocked in 
the liead." 

^' Aug. 22. Mr. Watt brought in 199 ripe pears this morning. 
All the morning taken up in sending presents of them to our 



334 THE UIs'IVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[January, 



various neighbors. Pa received tliis morning an offer from Leo- 
pold, King of Belgium, of an order of knighthood, which he was 
obliged to decline. AVhy didn't he do like tlie King of Portugal 
and send it without asking him anything about it." 

"Aug. 30. Pa went with Bishop Otoy to-day to see the Presi- 
dent, Mr. Cass and others. The Bishop is greatly enthused on the 
subject of a University of the South, to be erected in the Cumber- 
land Mts., Tenn., under Episcopal auspices." 

He got back to his good friends in Newburgh, Friday, Sept. 2d. ; 
Monday Mr. Hasbrouck had not set him to work. He could not 
bear to lose even one day, so on Monday, the 5th, this interesting 
diary says: — "No mention made of study, and Mr. H. has gone 
to the office, leaving me at home. But about 8 I started to work 
at Spanish, Latin and French, and stuck at them steadily till 
dinnor-time. Pitched into ' Blackstone ' at night. I want Mr. 
Ho to see me. I hope it will bring him to say something to me 
about it. My plan succeeded admirably, and I have now some 
half dozen books on hand to read." 

" Wednesday 7. I have gone to work in earnest. Waded into 
^ Blackstone ' directly after breakfast. After dinner took a little 
more of ' Blackstone ' until some one came in to see Mr. H., when 
I slipt out. After they had gone, came hack for half an hour. 
After supper finished the question on section 2d. Mr. H. com- 
menced to examine me on them. Bungled at two, though I was 
not quite prepared for any examination yet." 

" Thursday, Oct. 6. I don't work so well now as I did a couple 
of weeks ago. My mind is wandering from the book all the time, 
and I have to read some parts over three or four times before I can 
get the sense of it ; but that is partly owing to the many law terms 
I meet with and its being too in the old style of spelling. Didn't 
get back into the office until after tea. I worked about an hour, 
or tried to do so, but could'nt keep from nodding, so I thought it 
best to go to bed." 

" Thursday, Oct. 20. Finished ' Littleton ' to-day, the second 
lime, and commenced the second volume of Blackstone.' I want 
to finish all the four books before Christmas." 

He went home for his Christmas holidays. Much of his time 
was spent at the capitol, hearing the debates in Congress; but 
Monday, January 9th, found him fresh and bright as usual, on 
his way back to Newburgh and the law, where he arrived on the 
10th, after crossing the river on the ice. 



isiiS.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 335 

" Tuesday, Jan. 11, Went to a book-keeping class this even- 
ing. Read first chapter in ' Kent.' No prospect of my being 
put down in the business-office. The vacant desk has been sent 
away. 

" Thursday, Jan, 26. Spoke to Mr. H., about moving me 
down in the office. Said I might go in the morning. Good." 

" Jan. 27, Moved to-day, greatly to my delight. Stand some 
chance now of learning something about the practical part of 
business." 

" Monday, Mar. 5. Busy reading up for my maiden law-suit." 

"J/«r. 6. One suit came off to-day. Got judgment and costs. 
Got another suit." 

" Thursday, Mar. 15. Very busy in office, foreclosing mort- 
gagcF. Everybody writing as hard as they can drive." 

" Wednesday, June 20. Left Newburgh for good at 9, P. M. 
Xow for home." 

The family had now broken up at the Observatory, and gone to 
Virginia, as usual, for their summer recreation. He joined them 
in Fredericksburg. He was now looking forward anxiously to 
the University of Virginia, which was to commence its annual 
session the first of October. 

' His rule was to do with all his might whatever he undertook. 
So we soon find him at the law again in Fredericksburg. 

'^ Friday, Qth July. Commenced the law again this morning 
with Uncle Charles Herudon. Reading 'Warren's Legal Stu- 
dies.'" 

" Tuesday, July 10. Am studying French with Cousin John 
Minor, of evenings." 

Wednesday, July 25. Got a letter from Pa, saying for some 
reason which he would not tell, there is very little prospect of my 
going to the University the coming session of 1860-61. AVhat 
can it mean ? " 

" July 26. Nothing more about college ; am anxious. Don't 
want to go anywhere but to the U. of Va." 

" July 28. Wrote to Pa to-day on the University subject," 

" Aur/. 28. Had a long talk with Pa on the subject of Lex- 
ington and the University of Virginia. Lexington was knocked 
on the head. Hurra for the U. of Va ! " 

" Tuesday, Sept. 11. Uncle Brodie went to Warrentou Springs 
this evening; left a note asking me to go and see some of his 
patients." 



336 THE TJNIVERSTTY MEMORIAL. [January, 

"Sept. 12. Went around to see Uucle Brodie's patients this 
morning ; felt their pulses, looked at their tongues, &c., then left 
tlie medicines." 

" Sept. 28. Pa has allowed me for the coming year $500. A 
very liberal allowance." 

"Sept. 29. Started for College this morning." 

"University of Virginia, Oct. 1. No lectures for me to-day. 
Got my carpet put down." 

" Oct. 2. Attended my first lecture to-day. Frank Smith, Pro- 
fessor of Natural Philosophy." 

He now set in regularly to work ; and one of his chief pleas- 
ures was meeting with his old Georgetown school-fellow, J. N., 
whom he admired so much and with whom he was so anxious to 
measure himself. The entries in his diary became, now, less and 
less full, but they showed he was working hard — setting up late 
at his studies, until the small hours, and rising again sometimes 
at five, for his course was very full. 

" Sunday, Oct. 14. " Went to the University Chapel both times 
to-day " — his rule was to attend church regularly — " 'twas rain- 
ing too hard to go to town. Joined Dr. Davis' Bible Class this 
evening." 

" 3Ionday, Oct. 15. Up until 2 o'clock to-night, studying 
Math." 

" Wednesday, Oct. 17. Rose this morning at half-past 8. 
Rather later than usual. Joe did not wake me up." 

"Thursday, Oct.l^. Late at breakfast again ; must 'turn over 
a new leaf.' " 

This is the end of the journal and the last entry ; and it was "a 
new leaf," indeed, which he was about to " turn," for the country 
was fast drifting into war and he had the blank volume of the future 
before him to fill up with its horrors. He was the first of the 
foremost to take the field in that memorable war. A call was 
made upon the students for volunteers for a secret expedition. 
It was to take possession of Harper's Ferry. They went like 
minute men, and he among them. 

True, as yet no hostile foot had crossed the borders of Virginia 
and no blood .had stained her soil; but she was drifting rapidly 
into war; developments were swift, stirring and portentous ; the 
public mind was wild with excitement, and all was martial pre- 
paration. After a week or so, calmer counsels prevailed for the 



IS,;?..] THE UiMVEKSriY MEMORIAL. 337 

nioiuent, and young Maury and others were remanded back to 
their studies. He was under age and coukl not then join the army. 

But with the first excitement the time for study passed away ; 
and then the students who remained, organized themselves into 
military companies, and the University put on the aspect more of 
a training school than of a temple dedicated to the arts, literature 
and the peaceful walks of philosophy. 

The father well knew his son's power of abstraction and mental 
application, and urged him to push on with his studies. But, one 
after another, his fellow-students left, some for the field, some for 
home and some to raise companies and join the army. He 
entreated, plead duty to the State, and got leave to go. His first 
essay was to raise an artillery companyo He set out alone and 
upon his own responsibility to beat up recruits, but there were no 
guns, so that enterprise had to be abandonedo 

By this time Roanoke was hard pushed, and he went down 
upon his own " hook " to join Commodore Lynch, who had com- 
mand of our little flotilla there. The only written record left 
of his adventures on this expedition, is a note — on a scrap of 
paper — to his father, dated 

" ' Sea Bird/ Elizabeth City, N. C, \ 
Feb. dth, 1862. (Sunday.) j 

" Dear Pa : I reached here yesterday evening, too late for the 
fight. Found Lynch and fleet here. It had returned here after 
his ammunition had given out. One of his vessels sunk, three 
men wounded. We are going down towards the Island imme- 
diately. No time to write more. Love to all. 

J. H. Maury." 

They went. The Sea Bird was nothing more than a cockle-shell. 
She was met by the stout, strong and well-equipped vessels of 
the enemy, fired and sunk. His trunk with all his worldly pos- 
sessions, went down in her. He escaped to the shore and came 
back unscathed, with nothing but the clothes in which he went 
into the fight. 

He was now appointed Master in the navy, and went to work 
in the woods, getting out timber for gunboats. Here, as ever, 
lie won the admiration and elicited the praise of all the officers 
for his devotion to duty, singleness of purpose, and the thorough- 
ness with which he executed orders, 
oo 



338 THE UNIVEE:>ITy MEMORIAL. 



[January, 



Times' however, were too 'stirring for a spirit like his to be 
felling trees in the forest and building vessels that, as events de- 
veloped themselves, he soon foresaw never would be launched. 
He resigned his appointment in the navy, with the view of going 
into the army. He was soon invited on the staif of General D. 
H. Maury, in Mississippi. His fortunes were now cast Avith the 
Array of the AVest ; and the same noble traits and gentle disposi- 
tion which so endeared him to hearts at home, made him a 
universal favorite with his companions in arms. 

He had not, however, been wnth them long, before his mother 
and sisters, whom it had been his duty and pleasure to see com- 
fortably established in their new home in Fredericksburg, were 
broken and scattered like many others. His father had been sent 
abroad ; his brother was only waiting for his wound (received in 
the well-fought field of ' Seven Pines ') to heal, to take the field 
asfain ; and his mother, with the rest of the family had been 
driven out of Fredericksburg. It was now a scattered family, 
never again to be united in this Avorld. 

In November, 1<S62, he was taken prisoner at Holly Springs, 
Miss., but on the 8th of December, he was again at his post and 
thus wrote to his mother : 

" Head Quarters, Maury's Division, \ 

Camp New Grenada, Dec. 8, 1862. / 

" My dear-est Ilother : 

Congratulate me, my dearest mother, on my speedy return to 
'Dixie.' I was very fortunate — M'as only a prisoner 21 days. 

I came back feeling very bitter against the Yankees. 

They brag and boast and lie so. Every officer I saw, almost, liad 
his pocket full of counterfeit Confederate money, to pass off on 
the negroes and poor ignorant people in the South, and thinks it 
a good joke I have just been engaged in the delight- 
ful occupation of reading a budget of sweet letters from home, 
that had accumulated during my absence. Thank you all a thou- 
sand times over for so many sweet tokens, that I am still fresh and 
warm in the hearts of all I love and hold most dear. Give my 
dearest love and kisses to all of them." 

His last letter is dated Vicksburg, January 8th, 1863, giving 
a spirited account of things there. A few days after and he was 
no more ; the last that was seen, by friendly eye, of this gallant 



istis.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL./ 339 

and noble spirit, was at 1 P. M., on the twenty-seventh day of 
January, 1863. Grant was at work opposite to Vicksburg. try- 
ing to turn the course of the river. His gunboats and other ves- 
sels were there, and young Maury, with some of his comrades, 
was planning an expedition to cut out one of them by night. 
After going his rounds, and making a reconnoissance that had 
been assigned him that day, he parted with his companion, Colonel 
Burnett of Texas, who returned to headquarters for dinner, while 
" Johnny," as everybody endearingly called him, said he wanted 
to see how the enemy got on with their canal. He went alone; 
swam a crevasse, and intending to gain a point on our side of the 
river opposite the canal, from which the best view was to be had, 
rode down the levee. His route was down the Warrenton road. 
He was full of life, daring and adventure, and his not returning 
before dark caused no uneasiness. But when, next morning, he 
had not returned, solicitude grew into anxiety. Inquiries were set on 
foot and active search commenced. The General and staff, accom- 
panied by couriers, rode down to the crevasse and there learned 
that a horse, answering in description to "Johnny's" had been 
seen, with saddle empty, on the opposite side of the cres'asse about 
3 P. M., the day before. 

The first impression was that he had been thrown ; and the cre- 
vasse was searched and dragged. But Colonel Burnett, an expe- 
rienced Texan ranger, after examining the trail of the mare, reported 
that the crevasse had been safely swum, and that she had been 
ridden at a trot for two or three miles down the Warrenton 
road along the bank of the river ; that here she had turned off at 
a gallop and dashed riderless into the overflow ; that at this point 
there were foot-prints of the men, signs of a scuffle, some cartridges 
and a bit of india-rubber cloth such as the Yankees used lov cov- 
ering the cone of their rifles, and neither cartridges nor cK)th such 
as those belonged to us. The rubber cloth had on it the letters 
" I. v.," which may have stood for Indiana, Illinois or Iowa 
volunteers. About one hundred yards down the road, there were 
traces where a skiff had been run up to the bank, and where five or 
six men had landed and embarked again. Our pickets had been 
withdrawn from this side of the crevasse only the day before. 

No doubt was now felt that the party in the skiff was a scout- 
ing party from the other side, and that young Mauiiy was their 
prisoner. 



340 THE UNTVEESTTY MEMORIAL. [January, 

A flag of truce was sent over to General Grant's headquarters 
to inquire. Neither he nor Admiral Porter had heard anything 
■ of him. Porter knew him well; had been associated with his 
fatiier on duty at the Observatory ; and the two Generals, Grant 
and Maury, knew each other at West Point, and had served 
together in the Mexican War. They both sent kindly messages 
back, and said if the young Lieutenant Avas brought in, they 
would let General Maury know. They kept their promise, and in 
about two weeks, sent word that they had heard nothing of him. 

In the meantime various reports, some the most cruel, as to his 
capture and death, others the most tantalizing as to his safety, 
began to be circulated. Every exertion was made, both during 
and since the war, to trace them up, but in vain. Finally, and 
some time after the war had terminated, and in answer to an 
appeal for information, made by General Maury through the Mobile 
papers, a young man stepped into the editor's office and said lie 
could tell what had become of Lieutenant John II. Maury — that 
he had the story from one of our own men, who had since died, 
but was witness of the murder. 

The story ran thus : — " A party of renegades, or a party headed 
by a Southern renegade, had come over in the skiff and Avere con- 
cealed in the bushes. Young Maury stopped directly opposite 
where they lay in ambush, dismounted, and, with his back turned 
towards them, was looking across the river through his field- 
glasses. They rushed upon him. He attempted to re-mount, his 
horse started, he missed the stirrup, the mare escaped, and he was 
seized, carried across the river, and shot. Six balls passed through 
his body, one taking off two of the fingers of the right hand." 

However this story may be, it seems certain that the fire of this 
noble spirit was quenched in foul murder, and that he was bru- 
tally done to cruel and sudden death, a few hours at most after 
capture ; for he was too well known to be held a prisoner without 
the knowledge of the proper authorities, or without his name fall- 
ing upon ears to which it was familiar. 



3^,3] THE L'NIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 341 



TOWLES BROTHERS. 

John T. Towles. Private Slst Mississippi Infantry, and 
WiLi^iAM E. TowivES, M. A., B. L., Private, Washington Artillery. 

Among tlie very first acquaintances the writer formed wlien lie 
Ijc'cume a student at the University of A'irginia, was A\'illiam 
Jvskridgp: Towles. For four years we worked together, often in 
tlie same classes, and inspired by the same hopes. During this 
time there existed between us the most cordial relations of esteem 
and aficction. Pie hailed from Louisiana, but his blood was at 
least half Virginian ; and for thirteen years he was a resident of 
the Old Dominion. 

He was the oldest son of Major John T. and Mrs. Frances 
Peyton Towles, of Bayou Sara, Louisiana, and was born on the 
15th of March, 1837, in Staunton, Virginia, where resided at 
that time his maternal grandfather, AVilliam S. Eskridge, for a 
long while Clerk of the Chancery Court of that town. Mrs. 
Towles' mother was a daughter of Judge John Brown, for many 
years Chancellor of the old Staunton district. 

AVhen William was a few months old his parents returned to 
Louisiana ; but at the age of nine he was .sent back to Virginia, and 
placed in the family of his grandfather, Mr. Eskridge, M'hose resi- 
dence was then in Lexington. Two years afterwards he was trans- 
ferred to the school of his uncle, R. T. W. Duke, at Lewisburg. 
When !Mr. Duke removed to Albemarle county, William was 
s&.nt to Mr. Pike Powers, at Staunton, and remained there until 
October 1854, when he matriculated at the University. In this 
Institution he continued for six consecutive .sessions, during which 
he attained most of its honors: in 1857 he was graduated Bache- 
lor of Arts; in 1858 he received the degree of Master of Arts; 
and in 18G0, thatof Bachelor of Law. 

In lo57 A\'illiam was joined at the University by his brother, 
John Tuknbl'LL. . He, too, was born at Staunton, the date of 
that event being December 25th, 1838. Although nearly two 
years younger than William, still, when the latter went to Lex- 
ington at the age of nine, he was sent with liim. Hence the two 
brothers went together to Lewisburg, and afterwards to Staunton. 
Jiut when William entered college, Joiix was sent to Hanover 



342 THE UIS'IVEESITY MEMORIAL. [rCn-Mry, 

Academy, then under the conduct of Lewis Minor Coleman. He 
took a high stand there as a student, and indeed was rather noted 
for the rapidity with which he acquired. Mr. Coleman frequently 
spoke of him in the most gratifying terms. At the University, 
too, he was counted among the best in his classes ; and during liis 
first two sessions there he graduated in the schools of Greek, Latin, 
Modern Languages, and Chemistry. The third session he was a 
candidate for the Master's degree, but failed to graduate in the 
school of Mathematics. 

William Towles was a member of the "Washington Society. 
It does not appear that John belonged to any literary society. 

In 1860 the two brothers returned to Louisiana, and before long 
both M^ent to New Orleans — the elder to enter upon the study of 
the State law, the younger to attend medical lectures, with a view- 
to the profession of a j^hysician. While they were thus engaged, 
the war came on, and they at once laid down their books and took 
up their muskets. Their military life is best described in the words 
of Brigadier-General W. L. Brandon, under Avhom, as Captain, 
they both served. General Brandon writes from "Arcote Plan- 
tation, near Fort Adams, Miss.," under date May 15th, 1870, and 
says : — 

" JoHX T. Towles joined the company which I organized in 
May, 1861, called " The Jeff. Davis Guards." William E. 
Towles had previously joined "The Crescent Rifles," of Colonel 
Hays' 7th Louisiana Regiment, and was transferred to my company 
by consent of Colonel Hays, and at the request of Major Towles. 
I reported the company so organized, and tendered it to Governor 
Pettus, of Mississippi, to form a part of the 8,000 volunteers 
required as the State's quota. This was done a few days after the 
call was made, and so great was the zeal to respond, that we were 
too late by several thousand. We then tendered our services to 
the Confederate Government for the war, and were accepted and 
ordered to report at once at Richmond. We marched on the 24tii 
of May and reported early in June, and were grouped with four 
other companies from Mississippi into the 1st Battalion Mississippi 
Volunteers, and I was assigned to the command, with the rank of 
Major. The battalion Avas camped near the reservoir, and there 
the drill was commenced with energy and zeal. These two young 
soldiers showed great aptitude in acquiring a thorough knowledge 
of tactics, both of the drill and of camp duty. With their tall, 



1863.] 



THE rXIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 348 



stalwart, and finely-proportioned figures, they soon acquired the 
high and gallant bearing of veterans. 

'' A few days after, two other companies from the same State 
were added; I was advanced to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, 
and John G. Taylor was appointed Major. On the 19th July we 
were ordered to be ready to set out for Manassas. AVe reported 
at the depot, but could not go forward for want of transportation, 
preference being given to Hampton's Legion, in consequence of 
their having artillery. AVe went forward on the 21st, and had the 
mortification of reaching Manassas on Monday night, one day too 
late to participate in tli-e glorious triumph of the 21st. A few 
days after, four other companies from Mississippi were added, and 
we w^ere organized into the 21st Mississippi Infantry, Colonel 
G. B. Humphreys being assigned to the command. 

" Soon after we reached Manassas, typhoid or camp fever made 
its appearance in the regiment, and Joiix T. Toavles was among 
the first to contract the disease. His attack was apparently light 
and he was thought to be convalescent, when he obtained a fur- 
lough to visit his friends at Charlottesville, and recruit his strength. 
Soon after his arrival at the residence of his uncle. Colonel R. T. 
AV. Duke, he relapsed, and, after a painful and protracted illness, 
succumbed to this terrible disease on the 5th of September, 1861. 

"His death was lamented by all ; and his companions in arms, 
in company meeting, passed highly complimentary resolutions, 
expressive of their regard for him as a brave and gallant soldier, 
a patriot and a gentleman. From his great assiduity and appli- 
cation to the drill, he soon became a perfect martinet ; and as an 
evidence of the impression that his military studies and duties 
made upon his mind, in his delirium he frequently called out, 
' Corporal of the guard, Post No. 14 ! ' 

" Before closing, I cannot resist the desire to add my own tes- 
timony to his merits as a brave and gallant soldier, and to 
express the regret that he should have been cut short in the 
beginning of his career, which promised so fair, and before he had 
the opportunity of meeting the enemy, as he so ardently desired. 

•'In December, 18G1, "William Towles was at his own re- 
quest transferred to the Washington Artillery, Avhi(;h was com- 
posed of young men from New Orleans. This was desirable for 
him, as he pn^posed to practise law in that city. After serving 
with the artillery a short time, he was assigned to duty on the 



344 THE UNIVEESITY MEIvIOEIAL. 



'cfjrr.ary, 



staff of General J. E. B. Stuart, (who was a relation,) and was 
with him in his celebrated raid around McClcllan's array, in all 
the battles before Richmond in 1862, in the second battle at 
Manassas, and at Sharpsburg. For his gallantry he was several 
times mentioned in the reports of his distinguished commander. 
At the battle of Williamsburg he volunteered to undertake and 
successfully accomplished a most daring enterprise, which was 
acknowledged by General Stuart as entitling him to the highest 
praise. 

" He had the promise, either expressed or implied, of being com- 
missioned, and assigned permanently to duty with General Stuart ; 
but being disappointed in this, he was at his own request re-as- 
signed to the Washington Artillery. 

" Here, too, he served with great credit to himself. On one 
occasion he was the last man at his piece, all the rest being killed; 
but he maintained his position and fought his gun alone until he 
was reinforced. 

" He continued in this service until February, 1863, when he 
received a furlough to make a visit to his parents in Louisiana. 
On the night of the 19tli of that month, when within half a day's 
journey of his home, he was plunged with the train into the 
swollen waters of the Chunky river, between Meridian and Jack- 
son, Mississippi. The river was greatly flooded, and one of the 
abutments of the bridge had been washed aM^ay. A guard was 
stationed there to notify the train then due; but faithless to his 
charge, he was absent, and the cars rushing headlong to ruin, 
more than a hundred officers and soldiers perished in consequence 
of his neglect. 

" William Towles was highly distinguished for all the quali- 
ties and attributes that constitute an accomplished gentleman and 
a gallant soldier. His death, and the circumstances attending it, 
cast a gloom over the whole command. If he had fallen on the 
field of fame, his back to the earth, his face to the heavens, his 
feet to the foe, we would have felt some consolation in knowing 
that he had succumbed to the fortunes of war. But to be drowned 
in a miserable little stream, by the gross neglect of a brute too 
stolid even to feel regret for the loss he had occasioned, was heart- 
rending indeed." 

Apart from its circumstances, the death of such a man as Wil- 
liam Towles was a stunning blow to his friends. It would 



1SC3.] 



THE TTNTVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 345 



have been something to them if the waters had dealt as gently 
with him as with the drowned soldier so touchingly described in 
the Atheist^s Tragedy: — 

" He lay on his armor, as if that had been 
His coffin ; and the weeping sea (like one 
Whose milder temper doth lament the death 
Of him whom in his rage he slew) runs up 
The shore, embraces him, kisses his cheek; 
Goes back again, and forces up the sands 
To bury him ; and every time it parts, 
Sheds tears upon him ; till at last (as if 
It could no longer endure to see the man 
Wiiom it had slain, yet loth to leave ifiim), with 
A kind of unresolv'd, unwilling pace. 
Winding her waves one in another (like 
A man that folds his arms or wrings his hands 
For grief), obb'd from the body, and descends 
As if it would sink down into the earth, 
And hide itself for shame of such a deed." 

But the swollen Chunky, like a little man suddenly grown into 
power, held its victim with unrelaxing grasp. Finally, the body 
Avas recovered from the stream and carried to Bayou Sara by a 
faithful servant who had been brought up in the family and was 
greatly attached to his young master. For two or three days he 
was in the water searching for it, and would not be persuaded to 
give over his search until it was found. 

Mr. and Mrs. Towles were expecting their son, but not thus. 
Only once befo'^e, since the beginning of the W'ar, had he visited 
them, and then lie went sadly, Avith the remains of his brother. 
Not sadly now, but joyfully he was going to greet his friends, and 
to arrange for his nuptials with one of the fairest of Virginia's 
daughters. Perhaps lie meant to carry back to Staunton the 
orange blossoms for her bridal chaplet, little thinking that before 
they were to be used, the cypress would be twifled among the lau- 
rels that shaded his own brow ! 

Ah me ! such is our life ; 

Just so the shadows chase the light, 

And sorrows take the place of joys 

l^efore the joys are ripe ; 

Just so, without herald of gloom, 

Our brightest hopes sink into night, 

And we into the tomb. 



)46 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL, ^May, 



ELISHA FRANKLIN PAXTON, B. L., 

Brigadier-General, Stonewall Brigade. 

A modest tombstone in the quiet graveyard at Lexington, Vir- 
ginia, bears the inscription : — 

Genekal E. F. PAXTON, 

Died at Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863, 

Aged 35 Yeaks. 

" It is well with thee." 

Such is the brief but suggestive record which surviving affec- 
tion has made of a life well spent and nobly ended. A civilian 
become General in the first eighteen months of our great struggle; 
stricken down on the same field with his great commander, and 
upborne at the last on the strong pinions of an assured Christian 
faith — nothing more is needed to show that here was a life and 
character worth noting, worth commemorating, and holding up as 
an exemplar and model. 

Eltsha Franklin Paxton was a native of Rockbridge, and 
descended on both sides of the house from the oldest fiimilies of 
settlers in the great valley. His mother, a sister of Governor 
McNutt, of Mississippi, was noted for unusual intelligence and 
high moral qualities, and no doubt contributed greatly to the 
formation of the character of her son, Avho returned her love and 
care almost with idolatry. Passing his early years in the good 
old-fashioned way of boys trained to industry on tlie paternal 
farm, and in attendance on country schools within reach of home, 
he entered Washington College when still quite young, and was 
there graduated in 1845. He next became a graduate of Yale 
College in 1847; and finally took the degree of Bachelor of Law 
at the University of Virginia in 1849. For a few years his prin- 
pal employment was the active prosecution of land claims under 
the military bounty acts of the United States. But just before 
and after his marriage with Miss E. H. White, of Lexington, in 
November, 1854, he settled down to the regular practice of his 
profession, in which he soon achieved a marked success. With 
none of the natural gifts of the orator, he could yet upon fit occa- 
sion express vigorous thought in terse and nervous language ; and 



l.r,3.] Ttlt: UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 347 

whilst really one of the most kind and generous of men, yet when 
strongly moved by a sense of wrong done to a client, his invective 
was withering. Thoroughly grounded in the principles of the 
law, with habits of faithful industry and strong powers of appli- 
cation, he unquestionably had the capacity to make, and under 
favorable circumstances would have made a jurist of a very high 
order. His active mind was not content, however, with the pur- 
suit of the law alone, and upon the organization of the Bank of 
Rockbridge in 1856, he was at once elected president; a position 
which he filled with zeal and great efficiency, until its duties became 
incompatible with his service in the army. 

In the fall of 1860, failing eye-sight induced him to visit the 
Northern cities in search of the best medical assistance ; and under 
the advice of his physicians he relinquished his profession, and 
exchanged his town residence for one in the country. The sec- 
tional troubles of 1861 found him living in retirement with his 
wife and three sons, to whom he was devotedly attached, on the 
fine estate of Thorn Hill near Lexington. His ardent tempera- 
ment did not permit him to remain an indifferent spectator of the 
exciting political occurrences of the day, and he had not a 
moment's hesitation in assuming his position in regard to them. 
A steadfast and uncompromising Democrat of the extreme States 
Rights School, he advocated the immediate secession of Virginia. 
Xor, whatever men may have thought or now think of his polit- 
ical opinions, can the merit of sincerity and consistency at least be 
denied him ; for what he put into speech he more than carried out 
in action. At the first tap of the drum, on the 18th of April, 
1861, he marched as Lieutenant of the " Rockbridge Rifles" for 
Harper's Ferry, and thenceforward, till its close, his life was 
devoted to the cause which he religiously believed was the noblest 
and most exalted that could enlist human effort — the defence of 
his native State and of her liberties. 

The limits of this sketch will not admit any detailed account of 
his military career. He soon won the thorough confidence of his 
commander, GcneralJackson ; and this was all the more creditable 
to both of them, since their relations just previous to the war had 
been cold, if not unfriendly. It is sufficient to say of the cause of 
this estran2:ement, that it arose from an excited discussion in the 
Franklin Society, in which the then President of Washington 
College, the father of General Jackson's first wife, bore a prom- 



348 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [May, 

inent part ; and the subject of our sketch was the principal debater 
on the other side. From that time Frank Paxton and Major 
Jackson hekl no intercourse, until they met as Colonel and Lieu- 
tenant, respectively, in the military service of Virginia. It hap- 
pened soou that Lieutenant Paxton was sent upon detached 
service, and was required to report in person to the commanding 
officer. His duty had been so efficiently performed, that Jackson 
was accustomed afterwards to employ him upon expeditions of the 
greatest difficulty and importance, and their original friendly re- 
lations were restored with greater warmth than ever before. 

It was at the first battle of Manassas, though, that Lieutenant 
Paxton firmly and finally riveted the confidence, the regard and 
the affection of General Jackson. Towards the close of that hard 
fought day, when the first brigade (thenceforth to be known as 
" the Stonewall," ) were ordered to charge the enemy, in the con- 
fusion of the bloody fight Lieutenant Paxton was near the 
lamented Bartow, when he fell with the colors of a Georgia 
regiment in his hand. Paxton seized the flag, and requested 
permission to bear it. Three balls passed through it .and the flag- 
staff was shot off whilst he carried it, but at the head of the 
Georgians and a portion of his own 4th Virginia Regiment, he 
finally planted, in triumph upon a battery of artillery captured 
from the enemy. The courage and conduct which he displayed on 
this occasion met emphatic recognition and reward by a special 
order on the 7th of August, about two weeks after the battle, 
"announcing Lieutenant E. F. Paxton to the command as 
Aide-de-Camp to the General." On the 14tli day of October 
following, upon the occurrence of the first vacancy, he was pro- 
moted to the rank of Major. In January, 1862, imperious private 
considerations impelled him to offer his resignation, as he had been, 
unfairly he thought, deprived of a furlough. General Jackson 
disapproved the application, and r^jmonstrated with him to such 
effect that he wrote to Governor Letcher (by whom lie had been 
commissioned), stating that he had " come to the conclusion that it 
was his duty as a citizen and a soldier to bear any private griev- 
ance in patience," and requesting that his resignation should be 
treated as withdrawn. 

In the Spring of 1862, under the disorganization act of the 
Confederate Congress, making officers elective, in common Avith 
many whose strict and wholesome discipline was not relished by 



js,i;3-| THE UNIVERSITY MEMOETAL. 349 

the men, he failed to retain his rank, and was for a short time 
unemployed at home. Soon recalled by General Jackson, however, 
he served as Aide-de-Canip with his accustomed gallantry and 
daring through the perilous combat at Cedar Run, and afterwards 
as Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff; until upon the special 
and earnest recommendation of his illustrious leader, he was 
appointed Brigadier-General by President Davis, on November 1st, 
1862, and assigned by General Lee to the command of the Stone- 
wall Brigade. This appointment gave at first much dissatisfaction 
to the command, as he had been promoted over the head of senior 
officers. 

But the judgment of Jackson was soon so fully justified as not 
only to silence murmuring, but to conciliate respect and regard 
from all, and Avarra affection from those who came to know him 
well. His brigade, without a General since the death of Winder 
at Cedar Run, was in great need of organization, discipline, and 
proper equipment. He threw himself into this work with ardor 
and untiring devotion, and by a discipline strict even to sternness, 
but accompanied by a kindly sympathy and an unceasing atten- 
tion to the comfort and welfare, physical, moral, and religious, of 
his brave soldiers, he prepared them faithfully for the glorious 
part they were called on to fill upon the memorable field of Chan- 
cellorsville. There his career ended. After the fall of Jackson, 
on Saturday evening, great confusion ensued, and the Stonewall 
Brigade was up all night, marching and countermarching under 
different orders. At about 7 o'clock, A. M., of the 3d of May, as our 
men were on the eve of charging the enemy. General Paxtox rode 
to the left of his line to give final instructions to Colonel Edmond- 
son, of the 27th, and returning to the right, was almost instantly 
shot down with a ball through the body. He lived but a short 
time, and his last words were, " My dear wife and children." Yes, 
for them he had fought — ''pro aris etfocis" — and with thoughts 
of them his soul passed to the God whom he had learned reverently 
to worship. His last letters written home expressed the strongest 
religious convictions, shadowed by an evident presentiment of his 
approaching fate ; and one of them concluded by saying, " I feel 
that I can say, ' If it be possible let this cup pass from me, but 
Thy will be done.'" When Jackson heard of his fall, the im- 
mortal chieftain turned his face to the wall and wept ! What 
more need be said ? 



350 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. ;_May, 

If tlie"true object of life be, not merely to drag out a lengthened 
number of weary years, but to redeem the time, to employ worthily 
the space allotted us, to be prepared trustingly to accept the 
sumnroiis to another stage of being whenever it may come, then 
had his course reached its perfect and fitting close. So, whilst 
those bound to him by tenderest ties may long continue, with 
moistened eyes, to recall his death, all untimely for them, yet may 
they still repeat, and all who know how he lived and how be 
died can eclio the words graven upon his tomb, " It is well with 
him." 



COTESWORTH PINCKNEY SEABROOK, 

2d Lieutenant, Company A, 1st South CaroUna Volunteers. 

In the Confederate struggle for independence, it was given to 
young men of the country to perform great and distinguished ser- 
vice. Among all those men there stands out in the broad light 
of that heroic time no nobler figure than that of Cotesworth 
PiNCKNEY Seabrook. Sprung of an ancient and honorable 
race, he perpetuated all the associations of his historic name, and 
illustrated in his brief career all those virtues which men reckon 
the highest. 

Even in his life-time his companions said of him, as was said 
of William Napier, that he seemed raised up from among the 
medieval dead and set in the midst of us to give proof that the 
spirit of knightly courtesy, constancy and valor had not departed 
from our times. Such spirit indeed was his, and in no common 
measure, but it was tempered and softened by all the finer influ- 
ences of our civilization — by such womanly purity, modesty and 
Christian humility as find no place in chronicle of mediaeval days. 

He was born at Beaufort, South Carolina, November 9th, 1839. 
His father was the eldest son of Governor Seabrook, and his 
mother the eldest daughter of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, son 
of General Thomas Pinckney. A rapid glance at his boyhood 
suffices for the scope of this memoir. As a child he was shy and 
reserved, diligent at books, gentle in manner, not strong, yet cour- 
ageous and resolute withal, notably so in travelling alone to Phila- 



1803.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 351 



(lelpliia when the merest lad, to have a critical operation performed 
upon his eyes. . 

His mother was liis first teacher — a Avoman of culture, a wise 
guidcr of children — directing his studies with such watchful dis- 
cretion, such soft firmness as made lier son ever after count those 
years the happiest of his life. Afterwards he went to school in 
Charleston, where Mr. (since Professor) Sachtleben prepared him 
for college. At the age of seventeen he Avas confirmed in Grace 
Church (Charleston), then under the ministry of his uncle. Dr. 
Charles C. Pinckney. In October, 1857, he entered South Caro- 
lina College at Columbia, " with credit both to himself and to his 
teacher." Wlien, at the end of two years, ill-health forced him to 
lay aside his books, the President of the College stated, in his 
letter of dismissal, that " his standing was high both for morals and 
scholarship, and that he was a loss to the institution." 

After a year of leisure, and travel for the benefit of his health, 
he entered the University of Virginia in the autumn of 1860, 
matriculating as a student of Medicine. 

Here within a few months he drew around him a circle of 
friends, among whom were numbered some of the most brilliant 
men in the University. Always too modest in his estimate of his 
own abilities, he was ever ready with words of generous praise for 
his companions. They in turn were not slow to discern the charm 
of a nature at once so fine and rare — in which an artless, gentle 
humor and exquisite sensibility blended happily with the loftier 
traits which tradition has ever associated with the highest type of 
the Southern gentleman. Undoubtedly, strong religious principle 
formed the basis of his character. Genial as he was, and with all 
his inbred savoir-vivre, whenever sacred topics were made th$ sub- 
ject of irreverent jest he never hesitated to show his displeasure. 
Thorouglily as this religious principle colored every action of his 
life, it never bordered on asceticism. Cant was as foreign to his 
nature as was all else little, and when the grave, handsome face 
clouded over, oven the most reckless forbore to pain further the 
man whom they loved and respected. Every Sunday, during his 
residence in the Univitrsity, unused as he Avas to the bleak climate 
of Northern Virginia, it was his custom, in company Avith a few 
others as earnest as himself, to Avalk seven or eight miles to hold 
service for the poorer class of ])cople Avho inhabited the rude dis- 
trict known as the " Ragged Mountain." No Aveather ever turned 



352 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOFJAL. [jiay, 

him back, while his tact, patience and ready sympathy for poverty 
and distress, always won him an eager welcome. 

In December of this year. South Carolina passed tlie ordinance 
of Secession, and in the following January, Seabhook determined 
to join the State forces, then assembling at Charleston. The night 
before he left College, a few of those who knew him most intimately 
invited him to meet them at a social gathering, hastily gotten up 
to give all his friends an opportunity to say good-bye and AvLsh 
him God's speed as a soldier. Possibly on that occasion tlie vin- 
tage was not Chateau- Mar gaux, but certainly there was abundant 
mirth and bright talk and harmless laughter. Before the last 
good-byes were said, the whole of that little company formed a 
circle, and interlacing hands in true student fashion, sang " Auld 
Lang Syne." The memories of that night linger fondly yet in 
the remembrance of the few who survive. Not one man of those 
who stood in that circle failed to serve his country in arms. Not 
a few of the brave young voices which rang out so high and clear 
in the sweet old chorus, were soon to be hushed in death — not a 
few of the brave young hearts then beating strong with health and 
hope and all the joyous valor of youth, were soon to be stilled on 
field of battle. Three who clasped hands that night were destined 
never mor-e to look each other in the face; Randolph Fairfax, 
gifted with a rare, almost womanly beauty, learned and accom- 
plished beyond his years, of whom his captain, when he saw the 
slight, boyish form lying close under the gun he had served so 
well, the delicately chiselled features calm in death, and the soft, 
brown hair wet with his own blood, said with trembling lips, 
" Fairfax looked more like a woman and acted more like a man 
than any soldier in the battery" : — Percival Elliott, our young Sir 
Galahad, who, ere he fell on sleep, left behind him a name which 
shall ever bring a proud flush to the cheek of kinsmen av.d com- 
rades : — PixcKNEY Seabeook, worthy the love and admiration 
which these men bore him. Others too spoke the long good-bye 
on that night, whose names stand out brightly on the roll of our 
country's dead. 

Immediately on his arrival at Charleston, Seabeook enlisted 
as a private in the " Washington Light Infantry." After serving 
on Morris Island for six months and seeing Fort Sumpter reduced, 
finding that there was little prospect of active service on the Caro- 
lina coast, he entered Gregg's regiment, just then (August, '61) 



18C3.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 353 



reorganizing. Enlisting in Haskell's company of this regiment, he 
was at once appointed Sergeant, and soon after, when the regiment 
reached Suffolk (Virginia), was elected by the men, 2nd Lieu- 
tenant. The regiment had been ordered to that place for instruc- 
tion in drill, and the winter passed quietly enough in the dull 
routine of camp duties ; but in the spring, when passed to the 
front, Gregg's regiment was pronounced one of the best drilled in 
the army. Its first experience of service in the field was on the ex- 
pedition to Blackwater, at the close of winter, of which Seabrook's 
letters give a very amusing account. *' I am writing/' he says in 
a letter to his mother, dated on Sunday, " from the depths of a 
swamp, where Sunday has never yet penetrated, and where the 
Yankees may be expected at any moment." After describing his 
march of tlie night before, " wading thro' a quarter of a mile of 
swamp, waist-deep in water," he says : — " To-day I feel splendidly 
— have duck for dinner, and a strong probability of gunboats for 
breakfast to-morrow morning, and wouldn't be anything but a 
soldier; no, not on any account. I managed to keep my new- 
uniform dry with the only oil-cloth I had, and with the comforting 
conviction of its safety, I can stand any amount of bodily disas- 
ter." When orders came for his regiment to leave the line of tlie 
Blackwater and join the main army concentrating about Richmond^ 
he writes to his mother : — 

" May 2Sth, 1862. 

" I fear this change of programme will not give you as much 
pleasure as it does me, for it holds out a prospect that I may play 
my part in the great battle, now threatening, for the capital of our 
beloved country. Our wing may not be engaged ; at any rate, 
you must remember what a small chance I have of being hit 
among a hundred thousand ; or rather, I should not have said 
' chance' at all, for it does not depend on that. The God of bat- 
, ties is also the God of peace and mercy, and througli faith in Him 
alone I trust I can attribute my utter want of dread or anxiety 
about the issue, as far as I am individually concerned, of the great 
coming struggle." 

His first battle was at Cold Harbor in '62. His regiment then 
belonged to A. P. Hill's Division, which fought single-handed for 
many hours the whole centre of the enemy. Here his regiment 
suffered severely, and for a time, as was the case witli manv other 
regiments, lost all organization. In a letter written to his mother, 
23 



354 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKTAL. ^^^^^ 

and dated on the battle-field the day after the fight, he says :■ — 
" After the regiment got scattered, Captain Haskell and I, with a 
small squad from it, joined some of Stonewall's men just going 
into action, and kept with them until night. We had the satisfac- 
tion of charging through grape, canister, and bullets for half a 
mile. Captain Haskell, though a perfect stranger, seized the 
colors, led the charge, and ran the Yanks completely off the field, 
and our squad bagged ninety prisoners and a horse. I feel that I 
cannot thank my Father in Heaven sufficiently for His wonderful 
protection of me in the midst of death, and must ask you to join 
in the thanksgiving I owe Him. I spent almost all night on the 
battle-field trying to assist the wounded, and they are still coming 
in. Our company almost universally joined other regiments after 
scattering, and fought it through." 

From this time he was to share all the hardships and splendid 
triumphs of the famous " Light Division " of A. P. Hill, triumphs, 
which included Frazier's Farm, Malvern Hill, Cedar Mountain, 
Second Manassas, Harper's Ferry, Sharpsburg, Shepherdstown, 
Fredericksburg, and many minor combats such as Ox Hill, 
Hagei'stown, and Falling Waters. But it was at the second battle 
of Manassas that his brigade displayed such splendid, stubborn 
courage as drew to them the eyes of the whole army. For twelve 
hours (8 A. M. to 8 P. M.,) eight of which comprised the heaviest 
fighting, that brigade held its position, repulsing four desperate 
charges of the enemy (in which tioelve brigades of Federals par- 
ticipated), and losing over seven hundred men of the fifteen hun- 
dred carried into action and nine out of its eleven field officers killed 
and wounded, The story of Pope's discomfiture is too well known 
to need repetition here, but there is a freshness about the careless 
letter of the young subaltern which brings back the day more 
vividly than does the stateliest page of the historian. Writing 
from Fredericktown, Maryland, where Jackson's corps rested for 
a few days after crossing the Potomac, he thus describes the late 
battle of Manassas and the passage into Maryland : — 

" Near Fredericktown, Md., "I 
September 7th, 1862. j 

" Many a long and trying week has passed, my dearest mother, 
and not the first shadow of an opportunity has occurred, until now, 
for me to tell you that I am well and in Maryland. It is your 



1803.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. Sob 



grateful duty to thauk agaiu the God of battles and Father of 
mercies that your son survived the awful 29th of August, -which, 
if history is just, will be inscribed in letters of blood to Gregg's 
brigade. I fear you have been very anxious about me, and the 
only regret I feel in crossing the Potomac is the severing of com- 
munication between us, tliough this inconvenience must only be 
temporary. But let me here again exhort you, Avhen circumstances 
render it impossible to hear of me, to leave me entirely in the 
hands of Him ' who careth for me,' and to have faith in His good- 
ness. The dangers I have passed through have fully convinced 
me of my utter helplessness in protecting myself, death sometimes 
seeming most certain when it was farthest off, and vice versa. 
Under this conviction I acted, and am thankful to say, was enabled 
to do my part calmly and fearlessly, though not with the * reck- 
lessness' of which Major McCrady accused me, for I don't believe 
that right. Our brigade has suffered terribly again. On last 
Thursday, 28th, we left Manassas (which we had reached after 
marching fifty miles in two days and living on green corn for 
want of better rations), captured a new battery of artillery never 
used, and a regiment of cavalry — men, horses and accoutrements in 
the same condition. We stuffed ourselves and haversacks with 
Yankee delicacies, beef, lobster, lemons, vegetables, bread, candy, 
&c. ; burned two immense trains and the storehouses, and left for 
Centreville; then by the stone bridge to the Leesburgroad, Avhere 
we met the Yanks. Thursday evening our brigade was brought 
up, but not engaged. On Friday morning, at daylight, we were 
roused and marched into position, and at 8 o'clock the ball opened 
by the advance of the enemy upon us in heavy force. After a 
fierce fight they broke, and we drove them for a half mile ; were 
ordered to return and simply to liold our own,* as a general engage- 
ment must not be brought on, and our little band under General 
Gregg could not be reinforced. The next attack Avas fiercer and 
longer than the first — we were pushed back seventy-five yards, 
but recovering again, dispersed the Yanks. Wo rested for an hour 
or so, and here they came for the third time on three sides. We 
received tliem, as Jeff did the Mexicans, in the shape of a V, only 
inverted. Our men stood with their backs towards each other • 
in a cloud of smoke and deafening roar, the Yankees came up 
within ten steps. One of our daring up-country men, his bullets 
giving out, gathered a rock and actually smashed in a blue-jacket's 



356 THE ITNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[May, 



skull with it, killing liim dead. This is true, and happened more 
than once on Friday. At last, seeing our determination never to 
yield our position, the enemy turned and fled in confusion. It 
was then about 3 o'clock; single-handed we had met and repulsed 
three separate attacks, each one made, as we afterwards learned, 
by three brigades, fresh troops each time. More than half our 
numbers were dead or wounded, the rest worn out. General Hill 
obtained reinforcements and sent them to our aid, and at sun- 
down the final desperate attempt to break through our lines to 
Leesburg was made ; but Avoe to Yankee Doodle this time ; — he 
was soon routed and sent out of hearing. Hill complimented our 
brigade in the highest terms, and truly we deserved it. The fight 
was far more satisfactory than Chickahominy. We could see our 
antagonists all the time; they came right up, and I tell you we 
laid them out. I saw as many as six touching each other. Cap- 
tain Haskell received a bullet through his hat, and I one through 
ray clothes. The next day we were brought under fire early 
(after sleeping just where we had fought, among the dead and 
wounded), but the enemy made his attack in another direction, 
and Ave only caught a few bullets without returning any. The 
big fight, though, Avas going on within three hundrtid yards of us, 
and Ave heard it all, the woods preventing our seeing. The roar 
was awful, but Avhen the enemy broke, I ncA'er heard or expect to 
hear again so glorious a shout ; it began at our end and extended 
for miles ; it rose and swelled, and spread and spread, until the 
woods rang again, and then grew fainter, until the villainous 
Yanks Avere driven far away beyond Bull Run. I don't think I 
ever felt so grateful and happy in my life, and no sound Avill ever 
have the music in it Avhich that had, — no, not all the nightingale 
A'oices of all the fair ones I may hereafter listen to. Sunday Ave 
marched, and on Monday eA^^ening our brigade AA^as pitched in 
again, but did not suffer much. Here Ave slept among groaning 
and dead Yankees for the second time. This ended the fighting 
and Ave turned our footsteps toAA'ard Maryland : have done some 
hard marching, but, having been here several days, the army is 
pretty Avell rested. 

" The passage of the Potomac Avas a beautiful sight ; the evening 
was clear, so Avas the Avater, and the spot very picturesque, the 
river one-fourth of a mile Avide. Three columns Avere crossing 
when Ave reached the bank — two of infantry and one of artillery. 



]8t)3.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 357 



The long curved lines of shining bayonets and gay banners, floun- 
dering horses, noisy drivers and rumbling wagons — all combined 
to produce quite a stirring effect ; and tlien the sight of Mary haul 
on the other side ! The countiy looks as if the houses and farms 
had made themselves, none of the human species being visible, 
and the town of Frederick is hermetically sealed, stores and houses 
shut up tight." 

After the Maryland campaign he enjoyed with the rest of Jack- 
son's corps the respite from march and battle which fell to them 
in the lovely valley of the Shenandoah. General Jackson here 
ordered his Generals of Division to forward the names of those 
officers who had most distinguished themselves, in order that 
vacancies in the regiments miglit be filled by appointment. Sea- 
brook's name was the first sent up from his regiment, but as t!ie 
appointment tendered gave him but a single grade, and would 
necessitate his leaving his company, he declined it. 

At Fredericksburg his brigade again bore its accustomed part, 
and sustained in common with the whole army, a most grievous 
blow in the death of its lion-hearted General, Maxcy Gregg. The 
winter passed quietly enough in camp near Fredericksburg, enli- 
vened occasionally by the great snow-ball battles, in which rival 
brigades, commanded and manoeuvred by their field officers, con- 
tended against each other with all the ardor of actual combat. 

He experienced a keen disappointment in not obtaining, during 
this season of quiet, leave of absence to visit his home. In a let- 
ter dated March 4th, 1863, he says : '' Another summer of bloody 
work and great hardship is dawning upon the Army of Northern 
Virginia. It has been my earnest wish and prayer that I might 
be allowed to see my dearest mother before being hurled again 
into that sea of destruction and death, from which so many never 
return. That much desired comfort and pleasure has been denied 
,me, and as a Christian and patriot soldier, I cannot repine at my 
lot. Believe me, my dear mother, my faith in the God of battles, 
and Father of mercies, though weak, oh ! so weak — is sufficient to 
carry me through all the dangers and trials in store, with calmness 
and fortitude. ]\Iore than one battle-field has taught me that there 
is no hope in man. I thank God I know where to look for it." 

On the 29th of April the troops of Jackson's corps broke camp 
for the spring campaign, and on INIay 3d occurred the great action 
of Chancellorsville. The following letter, the last he ever penned, 



358 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. [^ay, 

reflects the soldierly spirit which animated hica and the rest of the 
army on the eve of that great campaign : 

" In the Trenches^ Four Miles from > 
Fredericksburg, April SOth, 1863. \ 

" Mij Dear Mother: — 

"The battle of Fredericksburg to all appearances, is like 
Manassas, to have a duplicate. At 10 o'clock yesterday morning, 
without any previous notice, or the least expectation on our part 
of an advance by the enemy — a courier, in a desperate hurry,, 
brought the order to be ready to move at a moment's notice, which 
was soon followed by the final one, and at 10.30, our winter quar- 
ters Avere broken up, camp deserted, and the * Light Division' was 
wending its Avay towards the old battle-field. There are soldiers 
for you ! after being in camp six months, where a great many 
little comforts had been collected, to be on the march in half an 
hour from the time they Avere told to prepare to leave ! Of course, 
there was no time for cooking, so we had to do without food until 
this morning, when hard crackers and raw salt beef were served 
to the thousands of hungry men anxiously expecting something. 
It rained from the time we arrived yesterday evening until noon 
to-day, but we were so tired and hungry that sleep was not to be 
driven off by any circumstances, however disadvantageous, and I 
for one slept like a top. Our brigade occupies exactly the same 
position it did in the last battle, and there is not much danger of 
the Yanks flanking us again. The men are in splendid spirits, 
ready to yell on the least provocation. ' Old Jack ' and Lee both 
caught it mercilessly this morning while making the rounds. We 
just know that we can thrash Hooker ' out of sight,' and the 
beauty of the thing is tliat he and his men know it too. From 
the top of the hill, behind our lines, their long lines can be plainly 
seen. Our skirmishers are only a few hundred yards apart. The 
batteries have opened and the men are falling in, so good-bye ; have 
no fear for me, for I fear nothing for myself. My trust in God is 
always strong enough in such times as these to keep me cool and 
confident J^ 

Long before this letter met the loving eyes for which it was in- 
tended, tidings had sped to the mother that her boy, while leading 
iiis men to victory, had fallen in front of the works at Chancel- 
lorsville. He had followed the great leader of his corps in count- 



1863.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 359 

less earthly triumphs, and now shared with him a victory before 
"which paled all the glories of Richmond and Manassas. He had 
fought the good fight, he had endured hardness as a good soldier 
of Christ; he had won the crown of life promised to those who are 
faithful unto death. 

It would be wcU-nigh impossible to picture the gloom cast by 
his death upon his regiment, liis brigade, upon all who knew him. 
The old brigade he loved so well paid his memory the unusual 
honor of attending almost in a body the rude obsequies accorded 
the young subaltern. Like the hero of Coruiia, he was buried 
at night, wrapped in his simple soldier's blanket, on the field made 
glorious for all time by his own valor and that of his comrades. 
No useless coffin, no farewell shot — only tlie struggling moon- 
beams shining on the hero's grave. 

He now sleeps among his own kindred in the far-off Southern 
land. 

The hold which he had taken on all hearts is evidenced by the 
countless letters which came to his family voluntarily and at once 
from those who knew him. Some had been Irs companions at 
college, some on Morris Island, some in the campaigns in Vir- 
ginia; but in all cases the testimony was the same to that most 
rare union of gentle and soldierly virtues, to his humble piety, 
splendid courage, gentleness, purity, self-abnegation. His Cap- 
tain, a distinguished University man and a tried soldier, who in 
the next general action yielded up his noble life, writes to his 
mother: — "Of his nobleness and piety I need not tell you. 
Tliough so long absent, his heart, I know, was ever open to his 
parents in all things; and I have never known anything of him, 
but his praises and his merits, that he might not tell you. Always 
mindful of his religious duties, he was of late especially devout, 
constantly reading his Bible, and often singing hymns with the 
men, whose affectionate regard for him caused them to take every 
occasion to be with and about him. His cheerful, bright humor 
never flagged, even on the battle-field, where his smile seemed 
more radiant than ever, while his voice and command gave life 
and courage to those aljout him." 

His Lieutenant-Colonel, long before death had hallow(;d his 
memory to his friends, described him as "in battle splendid, in 
private life exceedingly beloved — in short, the model of a Chris- 
tian soldier." 



360 THE UJS'IVEESITY MEMOr.IAL. 



[May, 



Many knew him only on the field of battle. Tliese were im- 
pressed by his person and bearing, by his fine soldierly instinct, 
by the coolness in desperate events which shone clear of all affec- 
tation. But to those who possessed the jjrivilege of his friendship, 
no mere words, nothing but his simple name, " Pixckxey Sea- 
brook," can bring back a semblance of the man they loved. 
Si'lfish sorrow dares not raise its wail in contemplating that Chris- 
tian life so rounded with the sleep which He giveth His beloved ; 
Avhile, as a soldier, his name shall go down upon the lips of com- 
rades eager to speak the biography of one who, to their mind, 
filled the measure of perfect knighthood — " chaste in his thoughts, 
modest in his words, liberal and valiant in deeds." 



GREENLEE DAVIDSON, 

Captain, "Letcher Light Artillery." 

Greenlee Davidson, son of James D. Davidson and Hannah 
Greenlee, was born in Lexington, Virginia, on the 21st of June, 
1834. On both sides of his family he was descended from the 
early Scotch-Irish settlers of the Valley of Virginia. In his 
veins flowed the blood of the Davidsons, Greenlees, McDowells, 
Grigsbys, Dormans, and Paxtons — names alike distinguished in 
the Revolution, the Avar of 1812, and the recent bloody struggle. 

He entered Washington College, September, 1852, and took the 
Master's degree in June, 1855. The session '55-6 he was a student 
of Law at the University of Virginia, the study of which he com- 
pleted at the " Lexington Law School," under the tuition of 
Judge John W. Brokenbrough, in June, 1857. He commenced 
at once the practice of his profession in connection with his father, 
whose practice was one of the largest in the upper Valley. To 
the duties of his profession proper, he united the labors of a 
Master Commissioner in Chancery. The records of both the 
courts of Rockbridge county abound with evidence of his indus- 
try, fidelity and ability. Such was Captain Davidson when the 
war commenced. 

In May, 1861, Governor John Letcher, who had known him 
from his childhood, tendered him the post of Aide-de-Camp with the 



18G3.] 



THE UKIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 



rank of Lieutenant Colonel of Cavalry, the duties of which office 
he discharged with zeal and ability, until February, 1862. Con- 
scientiously impressed that it was his duty to go to the field, he, 
during the fall of 1861 and the winter of 1862, raised and equipped 
the " Letcher Light Artillery," of which he was elected Captain. 
In February, 1862, his resignation as A. D. C. was reluctantly 
accepted by the Governor, and he entered upon his career of 
active soldier-life. 

His battery was assigned to A. P. Hill's Division, Stonewall 
Jackson's Corps, and was first brought into action on AVednesday 
evening, the 26th June, 1862, at Mechanicsvillc. This was the 
beginning of that great Seven Days' fight which culminated in the 
blood of Malvern Hill on the 2d of July. From day to day he was 
engaged during that terrible conflict. It was, however, at Malvern 
Hill that his battery acted the most conspicuous part, a detailed 
account of which has already been given in the memoir of one of 
its officers, Lieutenant Charles Ellis Munford, who fell there. . 

It would transcend due limits to follow minutely the " Letcher 
Battery " through its succeeding fights. A simple enumeration must 
therefore suffice. It was engaged at Cedar Mountain, Warrenton 
Springs, and Second Manassas; participated in the ensuing Mary- 
land campaign ; was greatly distinguished at the capture of Har- 
per's Ferry ; reached the field of Sharpsburg in time to Avitness 
the victory ; under A. P. Hill, was conspicuous in the contest at 
Boteler's Mill during the re-crossing of the Potomac ; and on the 
23d of December, 1862, closed the service of that eventful year 
at the great battle of Fredericksburg. 

Our captures of ordnance at Harper's Ferry and Fredericksburg 
enabled Captain Davidson to replace his light six-pounders, with 
which his battery had been, up to that time, furnished, Avith 
twelve-pounder Napoleons. Two of the six-pounder bronze guns 
of the battery had been cast in March, 1862, at the Tredegar 
AVorks, from a part of the metal of six large French guns belong- 
ing to the Virginia Armory at Richmond. These guns were, 
after the re-equipment, 2)resented to the Virginia Military Insti- 
tute, bearing inscriptions showing the actions in which they had 
been engaged, together with the following : — 



362 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. ^May, 

PRESENTED TO THE 

VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE. 
By the Officers of the Letcher Artillery, 

Greenlee Davidson, CaiJtain. 

John Tyler, \st Lieutenant, 

Thomas A. Brander, Junior 1st Lieutenant. 

Charles Ellis Munford, 2d Lieutenant. 

William E. Tanner, Junior 2d Lieutenant. 

January 1st, 18G3. 

"With the exception of skirmishing along the lines, the Army 
of Northern Virginia had no serions engagement from the 23d 
December, 1862, until the 2d May, 1863. The campaign opened 
with Chancellorsville, a name deeply engraved upon the memory 
of the people of the Valley, and especially of the citizens of 
Rockbridge. In that battle fell Jackson, Paxton, and Davidsox. 

On the 2d of May the Letcher Artillery was conspicuously 
engaged. The battle was renewed on the 3d, the victory was vir- 
tually won, the artillery was ordered to the rear to re-supply its 
expended ammunition, and an infantry charge was ordered to 
complete the rout of the enemy. Captain Davidson, under the 
inspiration of a soldier's pride, and forgetful of personal danger, 
under the glow of an unselfish patriotism, leaving his \vearied com- 
pany resting in the rear, returned with the infantry charge to the 
fighting line. His death-wound was the result. He was carried 
to the rear. The regular surgeon being otherwise engaged, a 
captured Federal surgeon was called in. To him Captain D. 
said, " Doctor, I know my wound is mortal ; tell me how long I 
will live." The reply was, " Captain, you cannot live exceeding 
one hour." " Tiiank you, Doctor," was his calm response. To 
his sorrow-stricken soldiers he said, "I am proud of your conduct 
to-day." 

As hazy death shut out surrounding objects and the dull ear no 
longer caught the huzzas of victory, his childhood memories awoke. 
Home and its loved ones passed before him, and brighter than all 
was the loved and loving mother's eye which seemed to rest upon 
her first-born, her best beloved. Dying he exclaimed, " Take me 
home, oh ! take me home ! " Truly he was taken " home." His 
freed spirit returned to the God who gave it, to join company with 
the noble band of heroes who had gone before, and to be reunited 



1863.] TIIK IINIVKESITY MEMOEIAL. 363 

with a belov'ed brother, Frederick, next to him in birtli, who had 
breathed out his young life on the field of the First Manassas; 
and soon to be joined by a still younger brother, Albert, who gave 
his life to his country's cause in Southwest Virginia, after that 
cause was lost, but before the sad inte«lligence had reached the bor- 
ders of the army. Thus a patriotic and devoted father and mother 
have been called to mourn the loss of three sons out of five — all 
of whom were brave and faithful soldiers. 

Captain Davidson fell in the twenty-ninth year of his age. 
How brief the career if reckoned by years, but how long if 
reckoned by events and sacrifices ! Thirteen great battles and 
almost numberless skirmishes characterized his soldier-life. Mod- 
ern science enabled him to see as much war and undergo as much 
personal danger, as have fallen to the lot of the heroes of history. 

He was, however, a man as well as a soldier. Descended from 
the best blood of the Valley — from names identified with all the 
great events of Virginia — he fully vindicated his lineage. As a 
student he was faithful and diligent, as a lawyer and Commissioner 
in Chancery, he was eminently successful ; for he had good sense, 
thoroughness, patience, industry and preeminent integrity, both 
mental and moral. His mind was remarkable for its balance, and 
his character not less so for its spherical symmetry. • All his gifts 
of mind, heart and character bespoke future usefulness and success. 

In person he was tall, lithe and well-proportioned. His features 
were high, his profile clear-cut and strikingly handsome. The 
stamp of race, mind and character were impressed upon his jierson 
and face. From boyhood his manners were gentle, kind and 
manly. 

As a son and brother, we can scarcely speak .of him in terras 
sufficiently measured. His mother gave her testimony when, upon 
the reception of the news of his death, she exclaimed, " He was 
mv idol ! " Recurring in her calmer moments to his life, she 
said : — " He was always obedient. I do not remember an instance 
of disobedience. He was never an anxiety, but ever a comfort, 
assisting me by his good example in bringing up his younger 
brothers." 

Such we sincerely believe to be a truthful and unexaggerated 
sketch of Captain Greenlee Davidson. His body now lies in 
the Lexington Cemetery, with Jackson, Paxton, Pendleton, and 
other heroes sacrificed in our cause. On each recurring tenth of 



364 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. ^^^^^^ 

May a loving patriotism strews flowers upon their graves, bedewed 
with the tears of a grateful people. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON STUART. 

Private, Rockbridge Artillery. 

The tide of time is swiftly bearing us further from the days of 
war. AYe see around us now men and woman who, as children, 
felt with us then, and were thrilled with keenest sympathy and 
interest in the common cause, but who did not, like us, give to the 
struggle every energy of heart and brain and hand, hang upon it 
with trembling hope, and survive it to find that hope disappointed. 
Already decay's effacing finger has sullied the whiteness of the 
monumental marbles Avhich Ave raised over our dead, and our lov- 
ing hands cannot as they would, arrest its work. Let us rather 
strive to engrave those noble names where they should forever 
endure — on the hearts of their countrymen. 

George Washington Stuart was born at Chantilly, Fair- 
fax county, Virginia, in 1838. His father, Charles Calvert Stu- 
art, was son of Dr. David Stuart, of Ossian Hall, who married 
the widow of John Parke Custis, General Washington's step-son. 

The name of Chantilly is now the property of history, but long 
ere the battles of 1 862 had made it famous, it was a familiar sound 
to Virginia ears, as associated with Washington Stuart's mater- 
nal ancestors, the Lees. The passing traveller was surprised and 
delighted by the beauty of its extensive lawn and shrubberies, and 
its hospitable walls had for many years echoed with the sounds of 
gaiety and cheerfulness. It was a much-loved and happy home; 
but alas ! of its loveliness little is left. The desolating breath of 
fire and sword has swept over it, and not even the tall trees or 
leafy bowers remain. In this beautiful home, Washington Stu- 
art spent the years of his early youth, and there besides the lessons 
many which can only be learned from a gentle and pious mother, 
he doubtless imbibed that deep devotion to home and country which 
nerved his heart for so much suflPering, and even death in their 
defence. 

In 1851, he first left home for Mr. Caleb Hallowell's school in 



I8(j3.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 365 

Alexandria, where he spent two years. From there lie went in 
1853 to Ridgeway Academy, Albemarle, then tanght by Mr. 
Franklin Minor, where ho remained fonr years. As a school-boy 
he was a diligent student and much beloved pupil. Tiie rare 
unselfishness and generosity which distinguished him in after-life, 
were conspicuous even then. He loved to spend his pocket-money 
on others, never on himself. Here too he showed his capacity for 
warm and devoted friendship, and some of the friendships then 
formed lasted throuo-h his life. Two of his schoolmates at Rid^e- 
way Academy, Messrs. Robert Love and William Radford, were 
afterwards his fellow-students and friends at the Univarsity. 
They fell before him, and he deeply mourned their loss. In 1857 
he went to the University, and there spent two years, graduating 
in several schools. The law had. always been his chosen profes- 
sion, but a student's life seemed so unfavorable to his liealth, which 
was naturally delicate, that he was obliged to abandon it. In 
November, 1859, he went to Baltimore, expecting to enter into 
business, but was attacked by a long and dangerous illness, which 
prostrated him for several months, and from which his constitution 
never fully rallied. He then determined upon settling in Texas, 
and in October, 1860, left Virginia for that State. He travelled 
over a great deal of the country, was delighted with it, and early 
in the spring of 1861, his brother-in-law and he purchased a 
cattle ranche on the La Bala river, forty miles from San Antonio. 
His letters were full of the deepest interest in events occurring 
at home ; they did not mention that his right arm was in such a 
disabled and suffering condition that the surgeon at San Antonio 
remarked, on seeing it at this time, that a little longer neglect 
would have necessitated its amputation. He was on this account 
unable to leave Texas in May with his brother-in-taw. His only 
solace was his daily ride of many miles to the post-office. But 
when he heard that the Yankees were actually fighting on Vir- 
ginia soil, his restless eagerness to do his part in its defence could 
no longer be restrained. Leaving everything, he started for home 
overland, his trusty rifle his only companion. His journey across 
Texas and Louisiana was toilsome and painful in the extreme, 
especially to one who was then sick and suffering. At night he 
lay down, often in the solitary marsh or swamp, witii his saddle 
for his pillow ; but when he reached home, in September, all his 
hardships were forgotten in the hope of entering the army and 



i66 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL.^ 



[May, 



fighting for his country. This, Iiowever, was then absolutely im- 
possible ; every surgeon who examined his arm prescribed for him 
rest and generous diet, and pronounced his- joining the army 
entirely impracticable. He wrote about this time, that " no one 
could tell how bitterly he felt his inability to strike one blow." 
He often said how hard it was that he, a young unmarried man, 
could not go in the army and let some married man stay at home 
with his family. He was always anxious to spare others ; he 
never spared himself in the path of duty. The opinion of 
the most distinguished surgeons whom he consulted was, that if lie 
waited for two years, using every means to build up his health, 
nature might do all for his arm, but that a very painful operation 
would enable him probably to use it. He replied to Dr. Peadey, 
who represented to him the expediency of waiting and the painful 
nature of the operation, " I don't care what I suffer, if I can go 
into the army.*' The operation was accordingly performed suc- 
cessfully, a piece of bone was removed, and the arm left to heal • 
but he could not take chloroform, and his suffering was intense. 
The surgeons all remarked upon his great patience and fortitude. 
In two months from that time, having with difficulty obtained 
the doctor's consent, he joined the army then stationed at Orange 
Court-House, and went with it to the Peninsula. But his choice 
was to be with Jackson, and he joined the Pockbridge Artillery, 
in his command, at the time of the battle of McDowell. Jackson 
then advanced down the Valley, and on the 25th of May fought 
the battle of Winchester, where Washington Stuart was se- 
verely, -almost mortally wounded in the face. When he recovered 
from the first shock of his wound, he wrote his name on a piece 
of paper, being entirely unable to articulate, and in that way his 
condition became known to his relative, Mrs. Robert Baldwin, to 
whose house he was removed from the hospital, and by whom and 
by Dr. Baldwin he was most kindly cared for. His wound was 
considered very dangerous for some time. His cheek and mouth 
were so lacerated that he could not speak, and could scarcely 
swallow, and the doctors feared lockjaw. In a week or two his 
sister was able to reach him, and soon after her arrival said to him, 
" Dear W., you have suffered so much ; I wish I could bear some 
of it for you." He smiled, and managed to articulate, "Not too 
much : I would gladly do more for Virginia." Yet he was 
naturally as averse to war and bloodshed as any one could be, and 



jg„3^ THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 367 

always shrank from even hearing others speak bitterly of our 
enemies. While at Dr. Baldwin's, the Yankees came to parole 
him, and insisted on removing the bandages from his face. He 
bore it better than any one else aronnd him, and cheeked the 
naturally bitter expressions of his friends. From "Winchester he 
was removed to Middleburg (where his family were then living) 
in four or five weeks, and his wound healed so completely that he 
was scarcely at all disfigured by it. It was after the battle of 
*^ "Winchester that the prayers which were unceasingly made for him 
seemed first to be answered, and his heart most gratefully inclined 
to receive the truth as it is in Jesus. His religion was not an impulse 
called forth by circumstances, but a deliberate turning of his heart 
and mind to Him wdio is the "Way, the Truth, the Life. Scarcely 
any one knew how anxiously his mind dwelt on and weighed 
religious things, and in the Providence of God yet another oppor- 
tunity of quiet reflection was given him. While on a visit to 
relations in King George county, in the fall of '62, he was taken 
ill with typhoid fever, and obliged to remain there until the first 
part of January, 1863. By that time he had been exchanged, and 
having crossed the Rappahannock with difficulty on account of 
the enemy's pickets, he joined his family at Ashland, spent two 
days with them, and then went to his battery stationed at Hamil- 
ton's Crossing, near Fredericksburg. From this point the Rock- 
bridge Battery only moved to take part in the battles of tlie 1st, 
2d and 3d, of May. On the morning of Sunday, the 3d, just as 
his gun was going into action, Washixgtox Stuart fell, struck 
by three balls, either of which would have inflicted a mortal 
wound. That evening his faithful friends laid him to rest in the 
family burying-ground of the Hamiltons and Maryes, a green 
shady spot amid the bareness of the camps. A, soldier's death, a 
soldier's grave were his, and beyond them, a Christian's reward, 
Death was swallowed up in victory ! 

One of his nearest and most intimate friends thus writes of 
him : — " He had always been so confident of our success, and had 
expressed such ardent hopes that we should go through the fight 
safely, and enjoy the great success Avhich he was so confident we 
would achieve. Yet I firmly believe that none of the many 
martyrs who have been sacrificed in our cause, would more cheer- 
fully liave chosen death, if by so doing we could advance one step 
towards the ultimate deliverance and freedom of our country. In 



368 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. ^^ay, 

a conversation which I had with him not long after his return to 
the company, I asked him why he did not apply for and obtain 
(as I knew he could) some appointment to serve the country in a 
capacity better suited to his education and habits of life. He told 
me that he thought it had a decidedly bad effect on the lower 
classes, who constitute the bone and sinew of the army — the pri- 
vate soldiers — for all the educated unmarried young men to be 
leaving the ranks to gain more profitable positions from which the 
private soldiers were entirely excluded, on account of tlicir lack 
of influence; and that for the present at least he should remain 
in the ranks. Pie acted up to his principles nobly, and was a 
most exemplary soldier. Of his attendance to religious duties, I 
am rejoiced to be able to give so pleasing an account. I was fre- 
quently with him, both at prayer-meetings and Cimrch, and his 
earnest, attentive demeanor was most pleasing to me. It comes 
forcibly back to my memory now, how glad I was to see him, 
shortly after his return to the company, after spreading down his 
blanket, kneel to pray to God before retiring to rest. It seemed 
to me at the time an open confession of Christ, for it was neces- 
sarily done openly before the eyes of several of our friends resting 
near us." 

The week before his death he had expressed his earnest desire 
to make a public profession of his faith, and declared his inten- 
tion of doing so on the first opportunity that offered. 

From a letter of General Lee to his sister, dated " Camp 
Fredericksburg, May 11th," we extract the following: — 

" I grieve greatly on my own account. I am deprived of one 
whom I loved and admired, and whose presence always brought 
me pleasure. His gentleness, his manliness, his goodness won the 
affection of all, and all sorrow at his death. But think what he 
has gained, what peace he enjoys ; what suffering, toil and hardship 
he may have been spared. God, in his mercy, be assured, has 
taken him at the right time and right place for him. May He 
give to his mother and his friends that strength and that support 
they require ! On learning the sad news, I went to Mrs. JNIarye's, 
the evening I returned from Chancellorsville, where I knew that 
he had been properly appreciated and kindly received, and learned 
that he was interred in their family cemetery, where I thought he 
had better rest. Mrs. P. told me everything had been done that 
could be, and that she had written to your mother. Peace to his 



isrsj THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 369 

remains and honor to his memory, and may God comfort and sup- 
port us all ! " 

" lie needs no tears who lived a noble life ; 
We will not weep for him who died so well, 
But we will gather round the hearth, and tell 

The story of his strife. 
Such honiasje suits him well, — 
Belter tlum funeral pomi) and passing bell." 



FRENCH STROTHER BIBB, 

4th Lieutenant, CharlottesviUe AvtiUery. 

French Bibb, son of Harriet Pendleton and John Henry 
Bibb, was born in Charlottesville, Va,, August 7th, 1843. He 
was a fair-haired boy, with blue eyes and clear complexion, trim 
but rather slight stature, and quiet, thoughtful, though cheerful 
countenance. Under the efficient training of an intelligent and 
pious mother, he became at an early age the subject of deep 
religious impressions, and at thirteen he brought the fresh offering 
of his heart's love to the altar of the blessed Jesus. So childlike 
was he, when coming thus to ask a place among Christians, that 
the ministers who were to conduct his examination, doubted the 
expediency of such a step. The result was an unusually rigid 
inquiry as to his views of Christianity, followed by a hearty wel- 
come to the duties and privileges of a Church member. During 
the subsequent years of his short life, the wisdom of this course 
was made evident by his devotion to the cause which he had 
espoused. In the Sunday school, in the prayer- meeting, as well 
as at the regular services of the sanctuary on the Lord's Day, his 
r place was regularly filled, while in the social circle his influence 
was decided. 

In October, 18G0, he became a student at Richmond College. 
Here he was under the especial care of his brother-in-law. Prof. 
Wm. P. Louthan, M. A., who had been recently elected to the 
chair of Gi-eek in tliat Institution. But the health of the latter 
failing, and he retiring to his home to die, French also left the 
College after a few months. At the opening of the following 
session he entered the University, and devoted himself to the study 
24 



370 THE UjS^IVEESITY memofjal. 



[May, 



of Languages and Mathematics. In the latter he took great 
delight and gave promise of becoming a proficient, receiving 
at the intermediate examination^ a distinction in the intermediate 
class. 

In March, 1862, Captain J. McDowell Carrington undertook 
to raise an artillery company in Charlottesville, and among the 
first and most efficient to render aid was Fkench Bibb. After 
the company liad been regularly organized and officered, it Avas 
ordered into I)arracks at the University, Avhereits numbers were so 
increased that the Secretary of War directed it to be converted 
into a six-gun battery. Tliis entitled it to a 4th Lieutenant, upon 
whom devolved the responsible duty of " Chief of Caisson." The 
first day of ]May was fixed Ujir>u <o fill this office, and not less than 
six members of the company entered tlie lists for it. The choice 
fell upon the youngest of them all, whoso extremely boyish 
appearance offered the only ground of objection. 

On the 17fh of May, the company broke up camp and moved, 
under orders, to the Valley of Virginia. Joining General Ewell's 
command at Front Royal, it followed Jackson through the cele- 
brated campaign which terminated with the battle of Port Repub- 
lic, and thence to Richmond, participating in the battles around 
that city. " During all this time," wrote Captain Carrington, '"the 
young Lieutenant raised himself in the estimation of his company 
by his courage, fortitude and gentlemanly bearing." 

While the Charlottesville Artillery tarried in the camp of 
instruction to drill and recruit, after these battles, Lieutenant 
Bibb made himself so familiar with his duties by study and prac- 
tice, as to be able to exercise the company in all the manoeuvres 
of field-artillery. From Richmond the battery followed the fort- 
unes of the field again until after the battle of Fredericksburg, 
when it settled down in winter-quarters at Bowling Green, Car- 
oline county, Va. Here opportunity was afforded for the display of 
both the officer and the man. In the former capacity he was faith- 
ful, energetic, even ambitious in the discharge of duty ; in the 
latter he was genial and companionable, and by his good fellow- 
ship, won the hearts of those under his authority until, such was 
his popularity, scarcely a word of complaint was ever uttered 
against him. 

In illustration of his Christian temper, the following incident 
may be related : Visiting the guard-house, on one occasion, as 



i,sr,3.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 371 

officer of the day, lie found imprisoned there a former school-fel- 
low and friend of his father. The man had known better days, 
but was now utterly degraded by long years of dissipation. Moved 
by the spirit of Him who came to " proclaim liberty to the captives 
and tlie opening of the prison to them that are bound, "Lieuten- 
ant Bibb sat down by him, spoke kindly to him — " The first kind 
words," said the poor fellow afterwards, " that I had heard for 
many, many long years " — gave him some tracts to read, and pro- 
posed his release on condition he would promise to make an effort 
to reform. The promise was given, and the soldier left the guard- 
house, and went forth to duty. 

The war was near its close — the young officer had long since 
filled an honorable grave — when the bereaved father ciiancod, 
in passing through a hospital, to find this friend of his youth, who 
had come thither to die. But he was no lon<i;er a dobauclice, for 
his eye kindled as he told of the solemn promise he had made and, 
by the grace of God, kept until then ; of the sustaining trust in 
the merits of the Redeemer, which filled him with peace and fitted 
him for the hour of death, now so near. All this he attributed, 
so far as human agency is concerned, to the labors and kindness 
of French Bibb, who, boy though he was, " talked to me," said 
he, " like a fiither." 

In the battle of Chancellorsville, the Charlottesville Artillery 
followed Jackson's infantry in the attack of the 2d of May, but 
it was not actually engaged until the 3d, when it was ordered for- 
ward to oppose a line of Federal artillery stationed some five hun- 
dred yards in front of the Chancellorsville House. In about an 
hour the enemy's guns were forced to abandon their position, and 
the order was given for an attack upon their infantry supports. 
This order was successfully executed, but the enemy driven in the 
direction of the Confederate artillery, to their surprise, formed in 
line of battle and fired a volley into them, mortally M'ounding 
Lieutenant Bibb in the groin. Bleeding and faint, he yet com- 
forted and encouraged the faithful and loving men who bore him 
from his position of exposure. Referring to his hope as a Chris- 
tian, he remarked : " I am, willing to die for my country; and I 
think it had better be myself than you." 

As they moved to the rear, wearied, they paused to " rest under 
the shade " a little Avhilc. Just then a cavalryman was seen ridino- 
at full gallop across tiie field. It proved to be a young man from 



372 THE UKIVEESITY MEMORIAL. ^j^ay, 

Lieutenant Bibb's native town, between whom and liimself there 
had existed from their earliest recollection, a wonderfully tender 
affection, almost "passing the lov>e oftvoman." Impelled by the 
same spirit, they had espoused the same cause ; but, entering differ- 
ent branches of the service, they had never met during the progress 
of the war. Was it mere accident that Willie Abell, now passing 
by, recognized his cherished friend ? Was it a simple providence of 
God that these two should meet after so much of danger and toil, 
to mingle their grief in this sad hour ? Or, was it the magnetism 
of love, little known, yet known a little, on earth, but reigning ^ 
supreme in Heaven, whose influence over hearts that have felt it 
before, is quickened as they near the threshold of purely spiritual 
life? One of these lovely young men had already fought his last 
iight ; the red tide was flowing from his death-wound. The other, 
too, after a few days more of severe marching and hard fighting, 
was to find rest forever. 

Their interview was brief, but while they communed together, 
the brave men that stood near felt their hearts moved, and eyes 
that flashed fire into those of their enemies were bedimmed with 
tears. 

The next day Lieutenant Bibb was removed to Richmond. 
By his side in the ambulance which carried him to the railroad 
station, was a friend, a sergeant of his company, but an educated 
Christian gentleman, who had been terribly mangled by the 
bursting of a shell, which for a time entirely destroyed his sight. 
Forgetful of his own sufferings, he put his arms around the sol- 
dier, to steady him and thus relieve him as much as possible from 
the torture of the rough way. At Richmond, he was reported for 
the ofiicers' hospital, to which he asked that his friends also 
might be sent. The request was peremptorily refused, on the 
ground that it would be contrary to "orders," whereupon Lieu-, 
tenant Bibb declared his determination not to go to the hospital 
designated. But some one in authority, who had more sympathy 
with suffering than respect for red tape, learning the facts, ordered 
the violation of the rule, and officer and private were laid side by 
side, and Chapman, the faithful servant of the former, attended 
both alike. 

On the 28th of May, death put a period to his sufferings. A 
friend at whose side he had fallen, and who helped to bear him from 
the field, wrote to his father, testifying to his soldierly qualities 



1863.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 373 

aud to the grief of the company at his loss. His company, in 
formal meeting, gave expression to their feeling at the death of 
one, who — to use their own words — "distinguished for the mild 
firmness of his bearing, the courtesy of all his intercourse, his atten- 
tiveness to every duty, his conspicuous gallantry in action, had 
secured, to a rare extent for one so young, the admiration, the 
esteem, the love of the whole company." The Sunday School in 
which he had been both pupil and teacher, added its tribute to his 
memory, and thanked God that " there was so much to mitigate 
the bitterness of the sorrow in the hope of reunion in heaven." 
And when the body was carried home to be buried, and the solemn 
toll of the Church bell, whose gladder tones he had loved so well 
in life, summoned his friends to the funeral ceremonies, " every 
place of business in the town was closed," and the w^hole com- 
munity united in giving honor to their young townsman, who, 
dying in his country's service, was no less a true soldier of the 
cross. Tiie funeral services were conducted by his pastor, Rev. 
AVm. F. Broaddus, D. D. On his coffin were laid the following 
lines, written by a lady friend, for the burial hour : — 

Strew flowers ou his coffln'd breast, 
His noble heart is now at rest ; 
The j'oung, tlie beautiful, tiie brave, 
We will not mourn his early grave. 
Faithfully his duty done, 
On earth a noble name he won ; 
But, nobler far tlian earthly" fome, 
He bore his Saviour's holy name. 
His early days to God were given, 
His record in the Books of Heaven, 
Then let him rest, till that glad sound 
Which calls the nations from the ground 
Full on iiis raptured ear is pour'd, 
" Come forth, ye blessed of the Lord." 



AYILLIAM KENNETH McCOY, 

Sergeant in the Charlottesville Artillery. 

The soldier referred to in the sketch just finished, who M'as sup- 
ported in the arms of Lieutenant Bibb as the two wounded men 
were removed from the field to the station on tlie Richmond and 
Fredericksburg Railroad, and who had in that young officer so 



374 THE rNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. ^y^^y^ 

staunch a friend when they reached the Confederate capital, was 
William Kexxeth McCoy. 

He was born January 31st, 1843, at Brookland, his father's 
residence in Fauquier county, Virginia. Here, ahiiost in sight of 
the Warrenton Wliite Sulphur Springs, the first nine years of his 
life were spent. Those who knew him then will not forget the 
appearance of the flaxen-haired, oval-faced boy, with the large, 
rich gray eyes, always full of life and merriment; nor will those 
Avho knew him in after-life fail to recall the fine manly form, or 
the classic features of that bright face which was the true index 
of the Avakeful mind and the noble soul within. 

In 1852 his father, Mr. William McCoy, removed to the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, where Kexxy remained under home instruc- 
tion until 1857; when shortly after the death of the former, the 
latter was placed under the tuition of an elder brother, then residing 
in Raleigh, N. C. After a year's residence in Raleigh, he entered 
Hampden Sidney College, and had already sitent two sessions there 
in preparation for a course at the University, when the commence- 
ment of hostilities, in the spring of 1861, decided him to return 
home and enter the service of his State. From carrying out this 
latter purpose he was, however, prevented for a time, by the remon- 
strances of his friends and the entreaties of his family, who rightly 
judging that he was as yet too young, and vainly hoping that his 
desire to join the army would give way to his zeal for study, 
induced him, after much persuasion, to matriculate at the Uni- 
versity. 

But, under the settled conviction that his place was with the 
troops, Kenneth had no heart for books, and ere long his name 
was enrolled for the company of artillery which Captain James 
McDowell Carrington was raising in Charlottesville. He was 
made a sergeant in the company, and took the field with it in 
May, 18G2. 

The history of the Charlottesville Artillery, until we find it on 
the field of Chancellorsville, has already been briefly recited. 
Soon after the battles around Richmond, Sergeant McCoy was run 
over by a caisson and so crippled that he was unable to walk; he 
did not recover from his injuries until after the battle of Sharps- 
burg had been fought. With the exception of the time thus indi- 
cated, he was constantly with his company until the 3d of May, 
1863, and served, as his comrades afterwards testified, "as one 



ISO).] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 375 

undaunted in dangers, cheerful under hardships, always active in 
the discharge of duty." 

On that fatal day the combined fire of artillery and musketry 
had told fearfully upon his battery, even until there -svere not men 
enough to serve the guns. Sergeant McCoy had charge of a 
piece; but in this extremity he undertook the additional duty of 
filling a fallen comrade's place, and, for some time, he not only 
directed the shots, but supplied the gun with ammunition. From 
.some unknown cause, a shell, which he was in the act of preparing 
for instant use, exploded in his hands. It seems almost a miracle 
that he was not instantly torn to pieces. He was, however, dread- 
fully wounded ; his hands were terribly lacerated, and several 
fingers broken ; one fragment of shell passing through the under 
part of one arm, carried away the flesh to the bone ; another 
struck the knee. His face Avas badly burned, and at first it was 
believed his eyes had been destroyed. Moreover, his clothing 
took fire, and before this could be extinguished, he received 
several severe burns about the body. 

Utterly helpless, lie was borne to the rear and tlicnce to Rich- 
mond, where, on the Saturday following, his brother. Rev. H. P. 
R. McCoy, then chaplain at the post of Charlottesville, found him 
at the Officers' Hospital. After a cheerful greeting and inquiries 
al)out home, he remarked : — " I am so glad, Charlie," (another 
brother, then serving in the AVest), " was not in that battle. It 
was an awful fight." The next morning he was removed to the 
residence of Mrs. John B. Martin, and comfortably fixed in her 
parlor, where that lady and her family assisted in tenderly nursing 
him, and the late Dr. James Bolton, whose skilful, but unavailing 
services are grateful remembered by his friends, became his regular 
physician. 

On the eighth day after he was Avounded, he opened Iiis eyes 
partially, and exclaimed gratefully, " Oh, I see light ! " But the 
next day an alarming hemorrhage from the wound in the arm 
occurred, and his mother and sister were telegraphed i'or. They 
ari-ived on the 12th, and, after they had been with him a short 
time, he asked his mother to pass between him and the window, 
that he might see her more distinctly. Then, begging her to retire 
and seek rest, he added, " Don't forget to pray for me, mother, 
liofore you go to sleep'. Pray that I may be a more thorough 
Christian." 



376 THE UKIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[May, 



His case bad, from the beginning, been considered critical, but 
not hopeless. Yet, though uniformly patient and cheerful, and 
always expressing his gratitude for any little attention, at no time 
did he express a wish to recover. The child of praying parents, 
he had been thoroughly instructed as to the Avay of salvation. 
Just a month before he was wounded, he had written to his 
mother, expressing the hope that her prayers on his behalf had 
been answered, and declaring his purpose to live henceforth as a 
Christian. Now his feeling seemed always to be that he had done 
only his duty ; no regrets for the past were entertained ; the chief 
concern Avas, that this ajffiction might he sanctified unto him. 

On Tuesday, May 19th, the apprehensions of his friends Avere 
increased, and that afternoon, with his head resting on his brother's 
arm, he quietly breathed his last. His early grave and simple 
monument are in the family lot in the University Cemetery. 

How much his comrades in arms loved him living, how they 
mourn him now that he is dead, let the following letter testify : — 

" Camp near Guinea's Station, Va., ) 
June od, 1863. j 

" Mrs. McCoy will not, we trust, consider it an intrusion upon the 
sfcre i privacy of parental grief,for us, the messmates of her lamented 
son, IvEXNETH, to unite our voices in bearing testimony to his 
worth, and to mingle our tears of heartfelt sympathy and sorrow over 
his honored but too early grave. The relations into which we were 
thrown, and the ties of community of interest, community of senti- 
ment and feeling, community of action and of suffering by which we 
were bound to him, we believe to have been second in intimacy and 
affection only to those of home itself. Cut off from relatives and 
friends, and dependent upon each other for society and sympathy, 
while we shared daily the same fare and occupied nightly the same 
shelter, our mess had grown into a family circle. What, at the 
outset, had been acquaintanceship, blossomed into friendship and 
ripened into mature affection. In him our hitherto unbroken 
circle has lost its first link, and we feel as though a brother had 
been struck down from our midst. As we look back upon the 
past, we can scarcely realize the fact that he who was, to so large 
an extent, the light and life of our band, has passed away from 
arth — that we shall never see again the gonial smile of his bright, 
face, or hear the animated tones of his cheerful voice. 



1SC3.] THE UNIYEESITY MEMOETAL. 377 

"In our constant and unreserved intercourse with liira during 
the closing year of his life, amid scenes which 'try men's souls' 
and develop defects unnoticed in the occasional intercourse of peace- 
ful times, we can remember no instance in word or deed which could 
detract in the smallest degree from the character of the high-toned 
gentleman. The more we knew him the more we loved him ; we 
loved him for his kind and obliging disposition, his warm and 
affectionate heart, the vivacity and buoyancy of his s[)irits, and the 
frankness, generosity, unaffected simplicity and real nobility of his 
nature 

" Several of our number are professed followers of the meek 
and lowly Jesus, and in our wanderings we had endeavored to set 
up a family altar. In this none took a more lively interest than 
Kenneth. For some time before his fatal wounds were received, 
he seemed to take a deeper interest in all religious exercises than 
ever before, and on several occasions he expressed the intention of 
joining the Church the first opportunity that presented itself. . . . 
" It is impossible to reflect without keen regret upon the 
untimely blighting of so many budding hopes, the cruel dis- 
appointment of so noble a promise. But we find comfort in 
the assurance that he could have fallen in no nobler cause, and 
that the messenger of death found him at the post of duty — joy 
in the hope that our loss is his gain. And, while we still could 
wish it had been otherwise, we would strive to bow in humble, 
trusting submission to the will of Him Avho ' doeth all things well.' 
"With great respect and heartfelt sympathy, 

"W F. Davis, R. A. Lewis, Je., 

A. B. RoLER, F. M. SwoPE, 

P. T. Wash, Albert L. Holladay, 

D. Hanson IBoyden, A. L. Marshall." 



WILLIAM B. HUTTON, 

3d Lieutenant, Company A, 5tli Alabama BattaUon. 

William Bryan Hutton was born in Green county, Alabama, 
on the loth of Februaiy, 1841. He was tlie fifth child of Dr. 
A. D. and Mrs. E. II. Hutton, both of whom were natives of 



378 THE UKIVEKt;iTY MEMOEIAL. 



[May, 



South Carolina, but residents of Alabama since their early youth. 

Dr. Hutton was nearly related to that eminent statesman, John 
C. Calhoun, and fully endorsed his political views. He had there- 
fore taught his son from his youth to regard with great jealousy 
his personal rights and those of his State. Thus, though hardly 
more than a boy, and at the time a student at the University, as 
soon as his State seceded from the Union and called her sous to 
her support, William Hutton at once left college and returned 
home to enter the tented field. 

He was to a remarkable degree retiring and sedate in manner, 
but always exhibited the most delicate respect for the feelings and 
rights of others. Strictly exemplary in his habits, he was also 
energetic and apt in his studies, always maintaining a position 
respectable, if not the very first, in his classes, and not infrequently 
receiving from his teachers premiums for merit and expressions of 
commendation for proficiency. Tiiis was especially true during 
his stay with Professor Thomas S. Garthright, Principal of the 
Summerville Institute, Gholson, Miss., from whom more than 
from any other he received the preparation necessary to enter 
college. 

In October, 1857, he matriculated at the Universitj^ of Vir- 
ginia, taking the Schools of Ancient Languages and Mathematics. 
He was then in his seventeenth year, but the reports given of his 
habits and standing were satisfactory to those most anxious for his 
best interests. The next year he modified his ticket by substituting 
Modern Languages and History and Literature for Mathematics. 
At the end of this term he received distinctions in Latin and 
French, and certificates of proficiency in English Literature and 
in Anglo-Saxon. A third session he devoted himself chiefly to 
the study of languages, and at its close he received diplomas in 
Latin and Spanish. He had the highest admiration for the char- 
acter of Dr. Gessner Harrison, who, during his first two years at 
the University, was Professor of Latin ; and through his influence 
he had determined to complete his study of Ancient Languages 
by a coui'se in Germany. But, during his fourth session, Alabama 
withdrew from the Federal Union, and he returned home and at 
once joined the "North Sumpter Rifles," in Avhicli lie was ap- 
pointed Corporal. 

A few days after, his company Avas ordered to Lyncliburg, and 
he retraced his steps to Virginia along with his comrades. In 



jtc3.] THE IJIS'IVEKSITY MEMOKIAL. 379 

June, " The Rifles " were regularly mustered into service, with 
A. S. Van de Graff as their Captain, and not long after, were 
ordered to Sterrett's Battery, at Manassas. Here the company 
remained until after the battle of July 21st, when it Avas stationed 
at Cock Pit Point. Subsequently it was organized w'ith four other 
companies from Alabama into the 5tli Alabama Battalion, and 
placed under the command of Captain F. AV. Frobel. 

In the latter part of the winter of 1861-62 the battalion was 
ordered to Fredericksburg, where it was turned over to Lieutenant- 
Colonel H. H. Walker, and atttached to Field's Brigade of Vir- 
ginians. But very soon afterwards Captain Van de Graff was 
promoted to a INIajority and put in command of the battalion) 
wiiich was at the same time assigned to Archer's ^Vlabama 
Brigade. 

The part which this brigade took in the M'ar is now matter of 
historv, and not discreditable to the State from which it came. 
With this command the North Sumpter Rifles participated in the 
Seven Days' battle before Richmond. It entered that struggle 
with seventy rank and file, and lost of this number twenty-one 
killed and twenty-two wounded. Among those who faithfully 
did their duty was William Hutton, who by this time had 
risen to be Sergeant in his company. 

In A. P. Hill's Hivision the brigade served through the 
memorable campaign including the battles of Second JNIanassas, 
Boonsboro', Sharpsburg, and Fredericksburg. And in every 
engagement William took part with his battalion, except in that 
of Cedar Run. In a letter M'ritten a short time before his death 
he stated that he had been in thirteen battles. And in these he 
was not only present, but so conspicuous as a soldier and so faith- 
ful as a subordinate officer, that in the latter part of 1862 he was 
advanced by his comrades to the office of 3d Lieutenant. 

It was in the battle of Chancellorsville that Lieutenant Hutton 
met his death. In the charge of Hill's Division, made under the 
direction of General Stuart, about sunrise on Sunday morning. May 
3d, 1863, he was mortally wounded in the breast and fell to the 
earth. As he lay there while the battle raged, he was shot again, 
this time in the right arm. About the middle of the afternoon, 
just as he arrived at the division hospital, and before he was taken 
lioin the ambulance, he expired. That night his comrades buried 
him as decently as was possible for them, and marked his grave. 



;80 THE U.NIVEES1TY MEMOKIAL. 



[May, 



His body was afterwards removed to the cemetery at Spottsyl- 
vania Court-House. And there it now rests, marked by a modest 
stone erected by his only surviving sister, Mrs. Dr. D. H. Wil- 
liams. 

Lieutenant Huttox held a high jiosition in the confidence and 
affections of his company, and shortly after the battle of Chancel- 
lorsville they held a meeting and drew up appropriate resolutions? 
from which we make the following extract : 

"Resolved, That by the death of Lieutenant "Wm. B. Huttox 
this company feel that they have lost the services of a brave and 
gallant officer. As a comrade he was quiet, unobtrusive, and 
kind ; fighting for a great and noble principle, he has fallen a 
martyr to the cause, which has thus lost a shining ornament. As 
an officer he was courageous, cool, and determined, never fliuch- 
ing from the hardest labor or the most sanguinary combat. In 
him were centered many praiseworthy attributes. Possessing a 
cultivated mind, a generous disposition, perfect coolness and self- 
possession in the hour of danger, a knowledge of military matters 
rarely surpassed by one so young and self-taught, he had also a 
gentlemanly bearing and an urbanity of manners that made him a 
favorite with all his comrades." 

Letters, too, were written from camp to his friends in Gaines- 
ville, and they breathed the spirit of genuine sorrow and sym- 
pathy. One of these said : — " He bore his sufferings with forti- 
tude, and calmly and patiently awaited death as one conscious of 

having performed his duty He was one of my best 

friends, in whom I confided freely ; in fact, he was beloved and 
respected by all who knew him, for his noble qualities as a gentle- 
man and a soldier. His loss, not only to our company, but to the 
whole battalion, is irreparable. 

. "He had the ardor and enthusiasm of youth united with the 
judgment and decision of one far advanced in life, which induced 
his friends to look forward to the j^romotion his merits so justly 
deserved. But premature death has cut short his promising 
career; and while his comrades unite in tendering their sympatliy 
to his bereaved relatives, they too need the same in the loss of a 
true friend and gallant soldier." 

Another letter from " Camp Gregg " says : — 

" He talked very little after he was wounded, his only desire 
being to rest. He passed away calmly and peacefully, without 



1SC3.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 3S1 



pain, and after death, looked like a man sleeping and resting so 
calmly. 

"It is not necessary for us to tell you how Ave regarded him. 
For the last two yeacs he has been so closely identified with us in 
thought, in feeling, and in action, that we regarded him as an 
essential part of our organization. As a Corporal, he was punc- 
tual and faithful; as a Sergeant, we knew every duty would be 
attended to under his command. In the long and arduous and 
hazardous campaign of last summer and fall, he performed for 
some time the duties of 1st Sergeant — an onerous and responsible 
office at all times — with great fidelity and skill. 

" After the first battle of Fredericksburg, he was unanimously 
elected Junior 2d Lieutenant of our company. His conduct in 
every particular since has justified the correctness of our choice. 
He was a skilful drill-master, and took pride in it. His dis- 
ciplined mind had become imbued with a love of the science, and 
he promised to become a thorough tactician. He was often con- 
sulted by his superiors in rank, when on the field, as to the proper 
execution of a movement, and he was regarded by all as being in 
the line of promotion." 



Dr. JOHN H. COWIN, 

Orderly Sergeant, Company D, 5th Alabama Infantry. 

" I am sinking very fast, I think. If I die, tell my father that 
I fell near the colors and in the discharge of my duty." 

JoHX H. Cowix, eldest son of Colonel Samuel and Mrs. Martha 
A. Cowin, was a native of Greensboro', Green county, Alabama. 
He was born. April 28th, 1839. After the usual preparatory 
training, he entered the University of his native State, at Tus- 
caloosa, and ])ursued tiie regular academic course at that insti- 
tution. In the fall of 1858, he became a student of Medicine at 
the University of Virginia ; at the close of the soHsiun here, he 
repaired to the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, where he 
was graduated Doctor of Medicine in 1860. 

During the summer of that year he commenced the practice of 
his profession near his native place, and continued it with flattering 



382 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [j,.^y, 

success until the spring of 1861. In April of that year, a com- 
pany of twelve-months' volunteers — " The Greensboro' Guards" — 
was raised, and Dr. Co WIN enlisted in it as a private. " The 
Guards" became Company D in the original.. organization of the 
5th Alabama Infantry, whose first Colonel was Robert E. Rodes, 
afterwards 'Major-General in the Confederate army. When the 
term of enlistment had expired, he exhibited the same enthusiasm 
which had characterized him at the beginning of the Mar, and 
pi'omptly enrolled himself again, hut, this time, for the war. 

In the capacity of a common soldier. Dr. Cowix served with 
the 5th Alabama for more than two years, and participated in all 
the battles in -which that regiment was engaged, except that of 
Malvern Hill and those of the first Maryland campaign, from 
which he was detained by sickness; and from the time when he 
met the skirmishers of McDowell's advance in July, 1861, until 
he yielded up his life in May, 1863, he bore a name for gallantry 
and efficiency which many might envy, none despise. In the 
battle of Chancellorsville — on the last day — he fell in a redoubt 
which the 5th and 26th Alabama had carried by storm. As he 
lay Avithin the earthworks, the blood gushing from the femoral 
artery which had been severed by a ball, he said to a comrade 
standing by him, "I am sinking very fast, I think. If I die, tell 
my father that I fell near the colors and in the discharge of my 
duty.'' In an hour or two he expired, literally bleeding to death, 
while his friends were bearing him from the field. 

When, a few days afterwards, Company D, which was then the 
color-company of the regiment, was called upon to select one from 
its roll who should receive the badge of honor for gallantry in the 
late battles, the award was unanimously voted to John H. 
CowiN. 

The record thus given is a modest one. It is that of a man 
who came forward promptly to defend his country ; who, under the 
impulses of a genuine patriotism, continued steadfastly in her 
service; who, discharging with fidelity and efficiency the duties of 
a position which his countrymen are only now beginning to hold 
in proper esteem, rose through the successive subordinate grades 
to the unpretending but responsible office of Orderly Sergeant in 
his company ; it is that of a soldier who, after passing over many a 
hard-fought field, rejoiced in the hour of death — which was the 
hour of victory as well — that lie fell near the standard of his 
country and in the discharge of his duty. 




^ ,.^- 



^g,,g^ THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. OOO 

It was not from lack of qualification for a higher position that 
Dr. Cowix had served thus humbly. On several occasions he 
was invited to come before the Examining Board of Surgeons at 
Richmond, but he uniformly declined, his views of duty con- 
spiring with his inclination and deciding him to remain with the 
company, wliich was composed of his early personal friends. In 
this "home-circle" he continued to the end, doing battle for his 
country as a chivalrous, high-toned soldier, serving the com- 
"panions of his childhood, as occasion permitted, by his professional 
skill, and not infrequently performing the duties of Assistant 
Surgeon of the regiment. There is something inspiring in this 
heroic devotion to country ; something touching in this unselfish 
attachment to friends; something refreshing in tiiis anomalous 
indifference to office, the mania for which Avas both endemic and 
epidemic. 



JOSEPH W. ANDERSON, B. L., 

Major, and Chief of Artillery, Stevenson's Division. 

Major Joseph Washington Andeeson was born at Fincastle, 
Botetourt county, Virginia, December 19th, 1836. His father, 
Colonel John T. Anderson, who survives him, is extensively known 
as a lawyer, and many times member of the A'^irginia Legisla- 
ture; and both he and his excellent wife — the mother of Major 
Anderson — are universally esteemed for their social virtues, 
generous hospitality, and exalted Christian character. The family 
home, "Mount Joy," near Buchanan, was one of the loveliest 
spots in the Valley of Virginia, until, in June, 1864, the build- 
ings, with their contents, were given to the flames by the vandal 
General Hunter; and yet their blackened walls, though an ever- 
present monument to the uncertainties and cruelties ot war, bring 
but a passing sadness when compared with the utter and irremediable 
desolation caused to those doting parents by the untimely death 
of their noble son — the only child. of his father. 

Joseph early discovered a fondness for reading j'lid study. 
When not yet ten years old, he was sent to the Botetourt Seminary, 
then under the charge of a graduate of the Virginia Military Insti- 



384 THE UKIVEESITY MEMOETAL. f^,„j.^ 

tute, and made rapid progress in his studies. Here it was that he 
acquired some knowledge of tactics, and here was laid the founda- 
tion of his after-developed fondness for military pursuits, enabling 
him, when the time of trial came, not only to acquire "the drill " 
with remarkable ease and accuracy, but also to submit himself, 
Avithout question or complaint, to the rigor of discipline and the 
hardships of camp-life. As a youth, he was sincere, generous, 
just, and brave, and was always a favorite with his teachers and 
fellow-students. After spending four or five years at this Semi- 
nary, he was prepared for the University at the classical school of 
"SVm. R. Gait, Esq., near Buchanan. Mr. Gait, himself a distin- 
guished graduate of the University, entertained a high opinion of 
his intellectual and moral qualities, and was wont to ])re(lict the 
high stand which his pupil afterwards took at college, and in the 
active pursuits of life. In the fall of 1855 he entered the Uni- 
versity, where he fully sustained his reputation as a young man 
of talent, of extraordinary industry and ai)plicati()n, and of 
exemplary moral character ; whilst his generous qualities and his 
gentle yet manly bearing attached to him not a few admirers and 
friends. Delicate from his childhood, at the close of his second 
session be was so prostrated by a severe spell of sickness as to feel 
comj)elled, though reluctantly and only ])y the command of his 
physicians, to sjjcnd a year in recreation instead of j)ursuing his 
studies. AYith health and spirits restored and invigorated, he 
returned to the University in October, 1858, and again won 
golden opinions from all with whom he came in contact. He 
took an extensive course that session, and accomplished as much 
as could Avell be, in like time, accomplished by any one — standing 
high in all his classes, and graduating in Political Economy and 
at the head of tlie Law Class. 

Concerning him, Prof. John B. Minor writes as follows, under 

date December 16, 1869: — "I fear it may be now too 

late for your purpose, but I cannot refrain from adding my mite 
to the general praise with which INIajor Joseph W. Anderson's 
memory deserves to be embalmed. He was for two sessions 
(1856-7 and 1858-9) a member of the School of Law, and, as I 
have often had occasion to say, left upon me an im[)rcssion so 
pleasing that I can hardly exaggerate it. Higli-prineipled, ami- 
able, modest, courteous, studious, and intellectual, an instructor 
could not have wished a happier aggregation of qualities, and they 



ISK.] 



THE IJTsTVEESTTY MEMOETAL. 385 



all shone in hiiu with a mild lustre seldom surpassed. His under- 
standing was of that desirable character, compact and symmetrical, 
whicli, if not the most brilliant, yet in tlie world achieves the 
greatest results. Accompanied as it was in him by a steady 
ai-siduity of application, no object worthy of attainment was beyond 
the reach of his disciplined powers, and his manly integrity would 
have scorned to accomplish any, however longed after, by un- 
worthy arts. His acquaintance with the elements of the law^ was 
copious and accurate, giving assurance of speedy prominence. I 
had formed high hopes of him as likely to illustrate a noble pro- 
fession at once by his abilities, learning and virtue. With a mind 
and character so well proportioned, he bade fair to rank with that 
small and superior class of men, unostentatiously and unselfishly 
good and wise, over whom friends and country exult as amongst 
the most blessed gifts which Providence bestows upon a land. 

" I have known no youth, during my more than a score of years' 
experience with young men, whom I would more wish a boy of 
mine to resemble, and I never recur to his lamented and untimely 
death without finding my sympathies awakened afresh for his 
j)arents, realizing with renewed pain the bitter anguish of mourn- 
ing for such a son. Nor can I cease to grieve for Virginia, dis- 
crowned as she is, and bereaved of her noblest, when I consider 
the loss she has sustained in him. Of all the precious lives wasted 
in the war, not one affects me with more pain. . . . 

" This tril)ute is an imperfect one to the memory of the very 
uncommon young man to whom it relates. His virtues were so 
modest and unpretending that one must have had, as I did, many 
opportunities to observe their singular worth before they could be 
fully appreciated." 

The day after graduating. Major Anderson was married to 
Miss S. W. Morris, of Charlottesville, she being tlie youngest 
daughter of the late Dr. iVIorris, of Louisa county. 

After his marriage and return home, he engaged actively in the 
practice of law ; but his delicate health unfitting him for a seden- 
tary life, at the close of the first year he retired from the bar, and 
devoted himself with characteristic ardor and energy to agricul- 
tural i)ursuits. 

At the organization of " The Mountain Kifles " — a volunteer 
company enrolled at the time of the "John Jirown Kaid," but 
whose services were not then called into requisition — in Dccem- 
25 



386 THE L'KIVEE.SITY .MEMOEIAL. [^av, 

ber, 1859, he was elected 1st Lieutenant. The Captain, Wra. W. 
Boyd, being in bad health, the task of drilling the company fell, 
in great part, to Lieutenant Axdersox. The company officers 
and men were soon uniformed in what was afterwards known as 
" Confederate Gray," and its organization and meetings for drill 
were preserved and continued through the year 1860 and early part 
of 1861. 

AVith the history of this company — composed of men, his 
neighbors and friends, who loved him and delighted to do him 
honor, and to whom he was devotedly attached — Major Ander- 
son's future life is intimately connected, and the compiler of this 
memoir will hesitate not to blend the two together, feeling as he 
does that the one were imperfect without the other. 

The secession of Virginia and actual breaking out of the war 
found this company one of the first to tender its services, and in 
view of the certainty of active service, a reorganization was had. 
The Captain, Wm. W. Boyd, being somewhat advanced in years 
and in very feeble health, tendered his resignation, and Lieutenant 
Anderson was chosen Captain. The company, thus fully or- 
ganized, was officered as follows : — Captain, Joseph W. Ander- 
son; 1st Lieutenant, Philip Peters; Senior 2d Lieutenant, John 
W. Johnston; Junior 2d Lieutenant, Henry C. Douthat; and 
Orderly Sergeant, William H. Norgrove. In April, 1861, Lieu- 
tenant Johnston, with Lieutenant T. Henry Johnston, of the 
"Blue Pidge Rifles," was sent to Richmond for arms and orders 
to march, the two companies, in the meantime, going into camp 
at home. Early in May, orders were received, and by the middle 
of the month the two companies had reported at " Camp Davis," 
Lynchburg. Here they were assigned to the 28th Virginia 
Infantry, commanded by that noble old Roman, Colonel Robert 
T. Preston, of Montgomery. After a brief season, the regiment 
was ordered to Manassas, and, reporting there in the latter part 
of May, was assigned to Cocke's Brigade. Soon after this. Cap- 
tain Anderson was ordered M'ith his company on detached service 
in front of our small army, to obstruct the roads leading to Bull 
Run from Ccntreville and Fairfax Station, and performed this, 
as it was then considered, arduous and somewhat hazardous ser- 
vice with his usual zeal and alacrity, and in such a way as not 
only to win the approval of his superiors, but also to train and 
discipline his men to an extent exceedingly beneficial to them iu 
all after-service. 



jg,;3. THE UIS'IVEESITY MEMORIAL. 387 

At the First Manassas he displayed great coohiess and gallantry, 
and endeared himself anew to the hearts of his men as one fitted 
to command in action no less than on parade. 

Long before the completion of the first year's service, at the 
time pending the reorganization of the army, nnder a General 
Order allowing commands volunteering " for the Avar" a leave of 
absence for thirty days. Captain Anderson and his company were 
among the first — and indeed the very first, as is confidently be- 
lieved — of the army then stationed on the lines at Centreville, 
who were relieved under the terms of the order referred to, in con- 
sideration of their prompt and patriotic action. "At this distance 
of time it is not easy to realize the degree of importance attached 
to this order; promulgated as it was at a critical time, when tiie 
novelty of the war had Morn off, when the enthusiasm of volun- 
teering had subsided, and when the public mind had not become 
familiarized with the idea of conscription. It was necessary to 
infuse new vigor into the army, to increase its numbers, and to 
engraft upon it the feature of permanence, while it was at the same 
time necessary to avoid harsh and unpopular measures. The order 
was a happy conception. But its success depended upon the devo- 
tion, ardor, and prompt action of those who for one year had borne 
all the hardships of the war. Example was everything. To 
hang back and delay until cold inaction should do its mischievous 
work was to hazard everything. We can therefore, even at this 
distance, look with admiration upon the disregard of self and 
selfish ends, that sacrifice of comfort and that soldierly ardor mani- 
fested by Captain Axdersox, than whom no one could have been 
more tempted by all the allurements of home. It was he and such 
as he who set the example afterwards so generally followed, and 
thus secured a permanent army composed of the best material in 
the South. About this time Captain Axdersox obtained, upon the 
.recommendation of his immediate superior officers and of General 
Joseph E. Johnston, commanding Army of Northern Virginia, an 
order from the War Department authorizing him to change his arm 
of the service from infantry to mounted artillery. Late in the fall 
of 18G1 the AVar Department directed the establislnnent of a camp 
of instruction for light batteries. This order designated Camp Lee, 
near Richmond, and Captain J. C. Shields — then commanding 
the First Richmond Howitzers, attached to General Evans's 
Brigade, near Leesburg — was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant- 



388 THE risIVEERITY MEMORTAL. 



[May, 



Colonel of Artillery, and assigned to tlie command of this camp. 
The leave of absence to Captain A^DEEsdN and his company, 
though used by him for the purpose of recruiting his numbers and 
preparing for the coming campaign, was but a manifestation of the 
high appreciation the Department entertained of their prompt 
compliance with the measures which had been adopted to impart 
renewed vigor and efficiency to the army." 

Before leaving Centreville for home, December 24, 1861, a 
reorganization of the company Avas had, resulting in the unanimous 
re-elcciion of the old officers. 

"This excellent officer, supported by worthy and gallant lieu- 
tenants and one hundred and fifty men — a majority of whom had 
passed through the first year of the war in active service, the 
others having been recruited by Lieutenant Johnston early in 
1862 — reported at Camp Lee in the latter part of January, 1862. 
The companies of artillery recruited in the fall of 1861 had for the 
most part been fitted out and sent to the front, so that when this 
young and favorite officer reported, the camp was comparatively 
unoccupied, except by a small garrison. Captain Akdeeson was 
the first to report his company under the order referred to, or of 
that other and very large augmentation of the artillery force 
which came in during the spring months, recruited by authority 
of the War Department, and amounting to some sixty field bat- 
teries that moved to the front from that camp of instruction. 
The officer in charge saw at a glance that in Captain ANDERSOiSr, 
his lieutenants and men, he could find the most trustworthy auxili- 
aries, not only in his effiarts for the speedy preparation of those im- 
mediately under instruction, but also of the numerous companies 
that he knew would be rapidly reporting. To that end and as far 
as practicable, Captain Anderson and his commissioned officers 
Avere immediately qualified as instructors ; and after performing 
more than the required hours of duty with their own company, 
they were assigned to the same work with other companies, and in 
General Orders Captain Anderson was announced as the officer 
in charge of that and of the general regulation of the camp." 

At this period of the war — spring, 1862 — the Department had 
not authorized in General Orders the organization of batteries in 
guns and equipments, as it subsequently did, taking as a basis the 
regulations compiled by a board of artillery officers of the United 
States Army, who completed their report about the time that hos- 



18(13.] THE rXR'EESITY AIKMOKIAL. 389 

tilities commenced. The EiclimonJ Howitzers and a few other 
batteries had obtained copies of this Book of Instruction before 
its distribution through the United States Army, and had entered 
the service tlioroug'hly informed of the advantages it gave in the 
new duties wo were commencing as a citizen soldiery. Special 
orders were issued, authorizing Captain Andeksox to draw a 
battery thus organized of six brass guns, with all necessary 
equipments. 

The battery being now entitled to four lieutenants — two first 
and two second — William P. Douthat was elected Junior Second, 
Lieutenants Johnston and H. C. Douthat going up one step each, 

" The Tredegar Works ha«l nearly completed their armament, 
and Captain Andersox, his officers and men, were in high spirits, 
anticipating early and brilliant service in reentering the field under 
such favorable auspices. The affairs of the Confederacy in East 
Tennessee about this time were not of an encouraging character. 
The Department issued an order directing a company in the most 
forward state of preparation at Camp Lee to move at once, regard- 
less of outfit, to that point, where an active campaign was to be 
waged with such material and resources as were at command 
there; and it fell to the lot of Anderson's Battery to go. AVhilst 
appreciating the compliment of being the advanced company, it 
was nevertheless, and very naturally, a day of sadness to all the 
command that their splendid battery and equipments, nearly ready 
for issue, were to be left behind, and never, perhaps, to be in their 
possession. With that high bearing and noble impulse which 
always characterized him. Captain Anderson received his orders 
and departed for his new field of service, carrying with him not 
only for himself, but for his officers and men, the unbounded 
attachment and esteem of all with whom they had come in con- 
tact." 

It is proper, just here, that acknowledgment should be made of 
the kind courtesy and valuable assistance extended to the present 
writer by Colonel J. C. Shields. Liberal use has been made above 
of material furnished by him. 

It may be remarked in passing, that the battery of iron guns 
given Captain ANDEitsoN upon his arrival at Knoxville was 
replaced at Chattanooga in December, 1862, by a battery of six. 
brass pieces from the Tredegar Works, liichmond. Soon after 
reporting to General E. Kirby Si'nith at Knoxville, early in April, 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[M.'iy, 



1862, Anderson's Battery was as-signed to Brigadier-General 
S. M. Barton's Brigade. Early in July. Captain Anderson was 
detached from his battery and ordered to duty as A. A. A. G. on 
the staif of General Barton, the duties of which position he con- 
tinued to discharge in the most efficient manner until the return 
from sick leave of Captain A. C. Thom, A. A. G. All through 
the campaign, spring and summer of 1862, whether as battery- 
commander or staff-officer. Captain Anderson discharged his 
appropriate duties with an aptness and devotion rarely equalled. 
At the battle of Tazewell, or Walrond's Ridge, August 6th, and 
during the investment of Cumberland Gap, August and Septem- 
ber, he was conspicuous for his gallantry and intelligent apprecia- 
tion of his own and others' duties. Cumberland Gap evacuated, 
he accompanied his battery, attached to Barton's Brigade, Steven- 
son's Division, through Kentucky to Frankfort, and back again, 
through Cumberland Gap, to Lenoir's Station. Thence he was 
ordered with his brigade and division to Murfreesboro', and from 
Murfreesboro', in December, 1862, to Yicksburg. All through 
the campaign in Kentucky and Middle Tennessee he Avas eager to 
be actively engaged with the foe, and now his ardent spirit was at 
last to be gratified. Arrived at Vicksburg in the very midst of 
tiie battle of Chickasaw Bayou, December 27-28, he hurried 
with his new battery, through the deep mud and intense darkness 
of the night, into position, and was soon and most gallantly 
engaged with General Sherman's troops. The enemy effectually 
repulsed, he went into camp at Vicksburg, and January 28th, 

1863, he was announced in General Orders as Cliief of Artillery, 
Stevenson's Division, that most Avorthy and efficient officer, Lieu- 
tenant Philip Peters, taking command of his battery. 

Conceiving the idea of governing the artillery of the division 
as an entire and quasi-separate command, Captain Anderson 
encamped the several batteries — Waddell's Alabama, Claiborne's 
3d Maryland, Corput's Georgia, and Anderson's Virginia — hard 
by each other, and at once instituted such a system of discipline 
and drill as largely increased tlie efficiency of the command, and 
gave him new reputation as a skilful and accomplished officer. 
At Vicksburg, as elsewhere, from his earliest entrance into the 
army, he made many friends, and came to be universally regarded 
as one of the most efficient and promising, and at the same time 
most popular officers in the army. 



isi;^.] THE UNIVEB!SITY MEMORIAL. 391 

On tlie 18th of Marcli, 18G3, Junior 1st Lieutenant J. W.John- 
ston was announced in General Orders as Captain of Anderson's 
Battery, thenceforward known as " The Botetourt Artillery," 
Captain Anderson having been promoted to Major of Artillery, 
and Senior 1st Lieutenant Peters having declined promotion and 
retaining his original rank. Both Major Anderson and Captain 
Johnston took rank from tlie 23tii January, 1863. Orderly Nor- 
grove was, on the 17tii March, elected Junior 2d Lieutenant to 
fill the vacancy caused by the promotion, one step higher each, of 
Lieutenants H. C. Douthat and W. P. Douthat. Sergeant David 
Lieps was soon afterwards elected Orderly. Little did this band of 
seven officers — dear to each other as brothers are — then anticii)ate 
that in less than sixty days tiiere would be left of their number 
only two, and one of these. Lieutenant H. C. Douthat, owing 
his safety mayhap alone to his absence in Virginia on sick leave. 

On the 28th April, 1863, the battery was ordered to break up 
camp at Warrenton and march with Tracy's Alabama Brigade to 
reinforce General Bowen below Vicksburg. The enemy, having 
repeatedly failed in his effort to assault us on the right, had suc- 
ceeded in running a number of boats, not only gunboats but 
transports protected by cotton, past our batteries from above, and 
had marched a large force down the other side of the river, crossed 
it over in these boats, and landed it below Grand Gulf, a fortified 
point some forty miles below Vicksburg. 

Captain Johnston, who had been detached on court-martial duty, 
left Vicksburg on the evening of April 30th, and, after riding all 
niglit, reached and crossed Bayou Pierre at daybreak, May 1st. 
He found Lieutenant Peters with four of his pieces in position 
with Tracy's brigade, and in a very few minutes the battle of 
Bayou Pierre, or Port Gibson, had begun. 

Very soon an order came to send two guns to the left to operate 
with Green's Missourians. Lieutenant Peters was entitled to this 
separate command, but at his earnest request he was retained with 
Captain Johnston, and Lieutenant Norgrove's howitzers were sent. 
The battle raged with fury, the enemy being found in overwhelm- 
ing force, having six divisions at hand, of which four were actually 
ouL^T'^ed, with a number of superior batteries of rifle and other 
guns. Our largest force at any time during the day was three 
brigades — k'<s tlian four thousand five hundred men. Yet our 
gallant troops held their line, and the men fought on with a dogged 



392 THE UKIVEESITY :\IEMORIAL. f^,,,.^ 

pertinacity and devotion worthy of a better f;ite. Captain John- 
ston Avas during the day reinforced on the right by the arrival of 
Lieutenant Wm. P. Douthat, Avith his section of six-pounders. 
The infantry lost a terrible percentage of officers and men, while 
the artillery, exposed to a galling fire from many batteries as well 
as to the murderous sharpshooting of the enemy, suffered severely. 
Tlie noble General Tracy was killed. Captain Johnston on the 
riglit, lost in killed Lieutenants Peters and Wm. P. Douthat, 
Orderly David Leips, and privates F. C. Noell and Couch, while 
many of his men were Avounded. Lieutenant Peters' section of 
Napoleons Avas left on the field, the horses being killed and the 
gun-carriages cut down by the fire of the enemy. On the left, 
after a most gallant fight. Lieutenant Norgrove's section Avas over- 
run by the charging enemy, and this splendid officer Avas shot down 
and breathed his last by his guns. Here also Privates Lindsay 
Stennet, and George Obenchain Avere killed, and a number of the 
men AA^ere Avounded, Avhile others fell into the hands of the enemy. 
The total loss of "The Botetourt Artillery" in this battle, killed, 
wounded, and captured, Avas about forty-five officers and men, Avith 
fifty-three horses and four guns. Late in the evening — after 
probably the most hotly contested fight of the Avar, considering the 
disparity of the forces engaged, and the fact that Ave fought on the 
open plain Avithout field-Avorks — our forces sloAvly AvithdrcAV in 
good order, the section of six-pounders under 2d Sergeant Francis 
G. Obenchain (the ranking officer of "The Botetourt Artillery" 
then present, Captain Johnston having been, late in the day, dis- 
abled, and Lieutenant H. C. Douthat being absent in Virginia), 
covering the retreat to the other side of Bayou Pierre. This 
young and efficient officer Avas afterwards promoted to be Lieuten- 
ant, a distinction Avell earned by him. 

Hasty Avorks, under cover of the night, Avere throAvn up, and 
the advance of the enemy Avas temporarily stayed. His demonstra- 
tions Avere such, however, as to compel a further retreat on our 
part, and on the sad march to the rear our little force met Steven- 
son's Division and other troops, sent to our relief, alas! too late. 
Major Anderson had ardently desired to be with his old battery 
in any engagement, and the meeting between him and his former 
Lieutenant and men after their terrible disaster, Avas a most affecting 
one. His tender heart Avas moved to tears, and he but gave 
expression to his true feelings Avhen he exclaimed that gladly 
would he have laid down his life to save that /lay's fight. 



18C3.] 



THE UXIVEllSITY MEMORIAL 393 



Extract is made from a letter of Major Anderson to his father, 
of date Vicksburg, May 2d, 1863, as follows: — "Yesterday we 
had a desperate fight with the enemy below Grand Gulf, in which 
General Tracy was killed, and the Virginia Battery (supposed to 
be my old battery, the only part of my command sent down) was 
captured and then retaken. I am intensely uneasy, but can hear 
no particulars, as telegraphic communication is broken. Am very 
much afraid that a number of my gallant boys have gone under, 
as they would never let the enemy take their battery except at the 
cost of some of their lives. Poor Tracy ! he was a noble-hearted 
gentleman and a gallant soldier. I shall never forget his appear- 
ance as I told him good-bye, but a few hours before commencing 
the march which proved his last. . . AVe are reinforcing rapidly, 
and so are the enemy, and I suppose the decisive battle will be 
fought in a few days. It is thought that Grant has concentrated 
50,000 or 60,000 on that flank, and the falling back of our men 
has given him possession of Port Gibson and Bayou Pierre, and 
this lets him into the hill country on this side the river. My 
heart bleeds for the gallant men who are maintaining the unequal 
contest down there. As only one of my batteries M'as sent, and 
especially as the enemy were making the most spirited demonstra- 
tions on our right flank, I was retained here; but this morning I 
begged the General (Stevenson) to let me take only one of the 
other batteries and go to their assistance. He didn't think it 
prudent, and refused it, but now has gone to ask to be allowed to 
go himself (General Pemberton being here in person), and if this 
request is granted, I shall go with him, and probably take some 
of my batteries with me Thus, upon the eve of par- 
ticipating in what will probably be one of the bloodiest battles of 
the war, I cannot help indulging in some very serious and sad 
reflections. I hope it is unnecessary for me to assure you and my 
noble mother of my undying devotion, and to request that, in case 
I should fall, you would devote yourselves to the care of my wife 
and children. On their account I shall try not to expose jny life 
unnecessarily ; but if, in the heat of action, my conduct siiould 
appeai-^to be contrary to this principle, it Avill be due to the 
extreme manner in which I am wedded to the cause in which I 
am engaged. These are sad thoughts, and it is as well to dispel 
tliem and be hapi)y while we may. Of one thing I know you 
will rest assured, that though I may be unmanned at some times 



394 THE UJNTVEESITY MEMOraAL.' pj.^^^ 

in thinking of these tilings, I will never be so in presence of the 
foe. . . I don't want you all to be uneasy about mo, as I have been 
so fortunate as to make very many warm friends out here, several 
of wdiom have insisted upon taking care of me should I be w^ounded 
or sick ; and if it sliould be my fate to die, I couldn't do so in a 
better cause." 

No immediate conflict was had with the enemy, but our troops 
returned to the neiii-hborhood of Vicksburoc. 

On the 12th of May, the division of General Stevenson moved, 
with other troops, in the direction of Baker's Creek and Edward's 
Depot, and General Pemberton, in command of a considerable 
force,. encamped on the night of May 15th in immediate proximity 
to Grant's army. 

The next day, May 16th, 1863, the battle of Baker's Creek 
wjis fought, and here it was that Major Anderson fell, mortally 
wounded. 

Major-General C. L. Stevenson, under date May 19, 1863, 
wrote as follows to Colonel Anderson : — " It is my sad duty to 
inform you that in the engagement of the 16th inst., your sou was 
mortally wounded and necessarily left on the field. Early in the 
morning, when we w-ere near Edward's Depot, I was ordered to 
join General Johnston Avith my command. As the movement 
was one of great importance, I selected Major Axdeesox to go 
forward and start the train, and select a position to be occupied by 
a portion of the command, in order to protect our flank. When 
he had performed this duty and returned, the enemy, largely out- 
numbering our force, had engaged us. He then Avent entirely 
around the line to see that all of his batteries were in proper posi- 
tion. By this time the fight Avas very severe on the extreme left, 
and he at once went to the battery then attached to General Bar- 
ton's Brigade, and it Avas there he fell mortally Avounded. . . In 
your great afiliction I tender my sincere syinpatliy. Major An- 
derson Avas all that could be desired in an officer — gallant, 
intelligent, and energetic. He gave his life to our cause, and died 
in the faithful discharge of his duty." 

And again, under date "Near Dalton, Ga., March, 6, 1864: — 
after the return of Major Anderson from the first duty referred 
to in ray former letter, he Avas constantly engaged Avith his bat- 
teries, Avhich occupied scA'eral positions, but I have no 

doubt that to encourao;e Barton's regiments — all of Avhom had 



■i5,;-.j THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 395 

the warmest confidence in him — he said he would lead them. 

With this they moved forward to the charge Major 

AxDEESOX fell in front of Barton's Brigade, on my extreme left, 
and not on my right." 

The following is an extract from the official report of Major- 
General C. L. Stevenson, of date "Demopolis, Ala., July 29, 

1864." "The success of this movement depended entirely 

on the speedy relief of the road from the obstruction caused by the 
presence of the train. I despatched two of my staif officers, 
Mnjors Webb and Anderson, to superintend the oj)erations of 
those in charge of the train ; about 9 A. M. the latter reported 
that the road was open — the trains having been placed as 
ordered — and free for the passage of the troops. This fact I im- 
mediately communicated to the Lieutenant-General commanding. 

In the meantime the enemy had continued his movement 

to our left, and fell upon Barton in overwhelming numbers. He 
charged them gallantly, but was forced back, and the enemy, fol- 
lowing up his advantage, cut him off entirely from the rest of the 
division. It was here that the lamented Major Anderson, my 
Chief of Artillery, fell in the fearless discharge of duty. In the 
very front of battle, the brave soldier, the noble gentleman, met 
his death. Here, too, the gallant Ridley, refusing to leave his 
guns, single-handed and alone fought until he fell, pierced with 
six shots, winning even from his enemies the highest tribute of 
admiration. Nothing could protect the artillery horses from the 
deadly fire of the enemy — almost all were killed, and, along my 
whole line, the pieces, though fought Avith a desperation on the 
part both of officers and men which I cannot praise too highly, 
almost all fell into the hands of the eneuiy. In this manner the 
guns of Corput's and Johnston's batteries, and Waddell's section, 
were lost. Double-shotted, they were fired until, in many in- 
stances, the swarms of the enemy were in amongst them, the 
officers and men standing by them to the very latest moment that 
they could be served." 

Brigadier-General S. M. Barton, under date "Richmond, ]May 
IGtii, 186 1," writes to Colonel Anderson as follows : — " Ydu know 
that my regard for your son was not mere friendliness; that 
long association and a fellowship in privation, hardship, and dan- 
ger, had begotten an affection more than fraternal. The frankness 
of his character allowed him no half-way measures. Where he 



396 THE L']S'IVEESITY MEMORIAL. ' [^oy, 

esteemed he gave his heart, and it is with no little pride that I 
recall the confidence he reposed in me and the many instances of 
affection he gave me. . . He brought me the orders to move on 
the 12th May, 1863, and rode a part of the way with me. He 
told me that he had a presentiment that he should not survive the 
iiApending engagement; that the feeling was new to him, but did 
not at all depress him ; that he could laugh at it, and if it had to 
be, he believed he could meet it as became him, but that he could 
not shake it off." [Just before this, he had talked in a similar 
manner to his friend. Captain J. W. Johnston.] " I saw him fre- 
quently on the march. He was always cheerful, full of energy, 
with a pleasant word and merry laugh for all, inspiriting tlie weary 
and winning the regard of all. . . My brigade was put into action 
about 12.30 P. M. He posted all the guns used on the left flank 
of the army, and assisted me in forming the line of battle. The 
enemy had forced back the troops to my right almost in a rout, 
and it became necessary to charge and check his victorious columns, 
or we were lost. In overwhelming force he came on — three lines 
deployed, extending far to the right and left of our position. Our 
little band charged w'ith fury, broke through the first line, throw- 
ing it back in confusion on the second, which in turn fell upon 
the third. Your son, leading my right regiment (40th Georgia) 
with cap in hand, cheered them on through the first and second 
lines, to fall at the third. . . I never saw him after he passed from 
my sight at the head of" the gallant 40th, cap in hand, cheering 
them on to victory. I like best to think of him thus — the gal- 
lant soldier, the noble gentleman, the exalted patriot. Virginia 
has made sacrifice of no loftier spirit on the altar of her liberty." 

The compiler of this memoir, himself an actor in those scenes, 
and frequently with Major Andeeson during the battle, is inclined 
to think from his own observation, but especially from statements 
made by Frank C. AVood — then a private, but afterwards a Lieu- 
tenant in the Botetourt Artillery — that the account given by 
General Barton is not strictly correct; this certainly not from 
design, but from the fact that General Barton, as stated by him- 
self, did not see Major Anderson fall. • 

In executing the order given by General Stevenson early in the 
morning. Major Anderson placed the Botetourt Artillery, Cap- 
tain J. W. Johnston, two guns, in position to cover the flank of 
the wagon-train during the process of its withdrawal. At this 



18C:3.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 397 



point, General Stevenson's right, the heavy fighting began, and 
here these two guns, together with the section of Waddell's Bat- 
tery sent to the relief of Captain Johnston, were lost, the miscon- 
duct of a portion of our own infantry contributing to, if not 
entirely causing, this result. Corput's Battery was lost later in 
the day, leaving to Major Anderso:n' at the time that Barton's 
Brigade went into action — 12.30 P. M. — very few, if any guns 
of his command proper. Up to this time, he, his officers and 
cannoniers, had done all that mortal men could do to hold the 
several positions occupied by the artillery, all the guns of Avhich 
were, as stated by General Stevenson, fought to the last. Ridley's 
Battery, attached to some other command of Pemberton's army, 
was now sent to the left, and Major Anderson, accompanied by 
the writer (now, owing to the adverse fortunes of the day, in the 
position of an officer without a command), placed it in position, 
under heavy fire, on an advanced point on General Barton's left. 
In this battery, private F. C. Wood, of the Botetourt Artillery, 
his own guns being lost, volunteered as a cannonier, and fought 
gallantly with it, as he had done with his own, until it too fell into 
the hands of the enemy. Leaving Ridley's position, a little in 
advance of Major Anderson, the writer next saw him with 
Brigadier-General Barton, and almost immediately Barton's 
Brigade, under cover of Ridley's fire, advanced to the charge. 
That Major Anderson accompanied and cheered on the infantry 
in this charge, there can be no doubt. The writer saw him, and 
indeed himself went down into the charge not very far fr( m him, 
but after this he saw him no more, and knew not, until after the 
battle was lost and the field abandoned, that he had fixllen. 
Barton's charge, most gallantly made, at first promised success, 
but it was soon checked and broken by the heavily-massed enemy, 
and some confusion ensued, ending almost in a rout. Lieutenant 
Wood, who, after the capture of Ridley's Battery, still remained 
on the field, doing what he could to encourage the troops, states 
that it was on the recoil from, and not in the advance to the charge, 
that Major Anderson was shot, he being then earnestly engaged 
(as was the writer at some little distance from him, but not Avithin 
observation) in an effort to rally and re-form Barton's regiments. 
Lieutenant Wood saw him fall from his horse, and, faithful to 
his beloved commander and friend, endeavored to carry him off 
the field. Succeeding in arresting by entreaty, and almost by 



398 THE UNIVERSITY WEMOEIAL. ^y,^^^ 

main force, some of the flying infantry, with their assistance he 
hore him towards the rear. Captain A. C. Tiiom, of Genera) 
Barton's staff, soon came up, and did all he could to relieve and 
succor his friend; but the rapid apjiroach of the enemy, and the 
increasing feebleness of Major Anderson, warned both Lieutenant 
Wood and Captain Thorn to seek tlieir own safety, and they left 
him on the field, shot through the abdomen, and, as was thought, 
in a dying condition. 

The better opinion would seem to be that Lieutenant Wood, 
who had opportunities of knowing not possessed by General Bar- 
ton, is correct in his version of the circumstances attending INfaj n* 
Anderson's fall ; but, however this may be, all agree in the fact 
that here, as everywhere during his brief career in the army, ho 
behaved with the most distinguished gallantry, and tliat he fell 
in the lofty determination to achieve success or die in the en- 
deavor. 

He was found by Dr. Vandyke, about 5 P. M., on the field 
Avhere he had been left under the shade of some bushes, and was 
carried to the field-hospital some three hundred yards distant, 
where he died about 2 A. M,, May 17th, 1863. He retained his 
senses to the last, and was perfectly calm and resigned, saving to 
Dr. Vandyke several times that he was resigned to his {<ite, and 
felt prepared to die. He had been religiously educated from 
early youth, w^as well acquainted with all the essential doctrines 
of the Christian religion, and was a firm believer in the truths of 
the Bible. He died from inward haemorrhage, having been shot 
through the bowels with a minie ball. He left surviving him, 
besides his aged parents, a beloved wife and two little children. 
His remains were removed from the battle-field to Fincastle by 
his father in December, 1863, and laid by his relatives in the 
Presbyterian burying-ground, where they will sleep until the 
glorious Resurrection. 

Thus lived and thus died Major Joseph Washington Ander- 
son. A more chivalrous and noble spirit never breathed ; and a 
merciful Providence granted him his preference of death to a most 
humiliating subjugation. His memory will ever be gratefully 
treasured by hosts of admiring friends, and by none more ten- 
derly than by the surviving officers and men of his old company. 

Of this company — the Botetourt Artillery — it may be added 
in closing, that, with a mixed armament of heavy and light guns 



18(13.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 399 

and Enfield rifles, it did its full duty in the siege of Vicksburg. 
Here it was commanded by Lieutenant F. C. Obenchain, after the 
assignment of Captain Johnston to duty as Chief of Artillery, 
Stevenson's Division, vice Axdersox, killed. Being greatly 
•weakened by its losses before and during the siege of Vicksburg, 
and all connected with it being anxious to return to Virginia, 
Captain Johnston, now promoted to Major of Artillery, with the 
assistance of Colonel John T. Anderson and Brigadier-General 
John Echols, procured from the War Department an order trans- 
ferring the battery to Southwestern Virginia. It was afterwards 
during the war commanded by Captain Henry C. Douthat, Major 
Johnston remaining South and West in command of a battalion 
of artillery until the surrender in Aj)ril, 1865. 



W. C. p. CARRINGTON, 

Captain, Company A, 1st Missouri Infantry. 

William Campbell Preston Careington was born Sep- 
tember 30th, 1835, in Abingdon, Virginia. His father was 
General Eilward C. Carrington, of Halifax county, Virginia. 
General Carrington was one of the most distinguished and 
respected citizens of his State, known far and near by his con- 
spicuous virtues, and respected for his intelligence and public 
spirit. He had served with credit in the war of 1812, was 
wounded severely at Sackett's Harbor, where he Avas brevetted 
Captain for gallant conduct, and he was voted a sword by the 
Legislature of Virginia. General Carrington was the son of 
Judge Paul Carrington, of the Circuit Courl of Virginia, and the 
grandson of Judge Paul Carrington the elder, who Mas a Judge 
of the Court of Appeals of Virginia. 

Campbell Caiibington's mother was Miss Eliza Henry, 
eldest daughter of General Francis Preston, of Abingdon, Vir- 
ginia. His grandmother was Mrs. Sarah 15. Preston, i/cc Camp- 
bell, the only daughter and child of General William Campbell, 
of King's ]\Iountain. His greatgrandmother was, before mar- 
riage, ]\liss Elizabeth Henry, a sister of Patrick Henry.. 

Campbell Carrington was distinguished from childhood for 



400 THE UNTVEKSITY MEMORIAL. [-j^i^y, 

his frankness and generosity of character, his truthfulness and 
courage, his aifectionate temper, his cordial manners, the warmth 
and fidelity of his friendships, and for those sentiments which 
constitute, in the esteem of all, the man of honor. After the 
usual foundation of education was laid in the excellent country 
schools in which he spent his earlier years, he went to Wash- 
ington College, at Lexington, A'^irginia, winning there the appro- 
bation of his teachers and the respect of his fellow-students by 
his steady habits and gentlemanly conduct. 

From Lexington he was called home by the death of his father, 
then residing in Botetourt county, which occurred in 1855. 
Though yet a youth not twenty years of age, he was called upon 
to take charge of tiie family under circumstances of peculiar 
difficulty and trial ; but he discharged the office Avith manly 
energy and intelligence. In 1857 the family of his mc^tlier re- 
moved to Charlottesville, a circumstance which soon afforded him 
the advantage of matriculating at the University of Virginia. 

Before entering this institution, however, he joined, in the sum- 
mer of 1857, on the invitation of his uncle-in-law. General Floyd, 
Secretary of War, the exploring expedition of Lieutenant Ives to 
the Black Mountains, whence he returned in the fall of that year. 

At the University he attained a high character as a student, and 
reputation for talent and oratory, standing among the foremost in 
his classes and in the Jefierson Society, of which he was a member. 
After leaving the University, where, during the session of 1858-9, 
he had been a member of the Law Class, he continued the study 
of his profession in Washington city, with his brother, General 
E. C. Carrington, who was afterwards for many years, United 
States Attorney for the District of Columbia, and in t!iat city he 
w^as admitted to the bar. He selected St. Louis as tlie locality 
in which to try his fortune in life, where he soon succeeded in 
commanding a practice and in gaining a position at the bar. 

He was hence on the highway to success, and giving promise of 
eminence and influence as a citizen, when his career -was interru[)ted 
by the civil commotions which soon culminated in a bloody and 
gigantic civil war. The following letters from the friends of 
Captain Campbell Carrington give a more touching account 
of his heroic but sad career in the army, than can now be 
penned :- — 



1863.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 401 



"St. Louis, Mo., llarch 4th, 1869. 
"James M. Caerington, Esq., 

Charlottesville, Va. 

"Dear Sir: — Yourletter of February 27th reached me yesterday, 
and I hasten in reply to give you all the information in my power in 
regard to your brother, who was an intimate and dear friend of 
mine. 

" At the time he received the wound in the thigh, political ex- 
citement was running very high here. The young men were all 
forming companies and drilling, preparing to go into camp at 
* Camp Jackson,' near the city. Campbell was very active, and 
various expedients were being devised to procure arms and ammu- 
nition — among others, one to seize an armed boat which was 
conveying away arms from JeiFerson Barracks, just below the 
city, to the Illinois shore. We were trying to make arrangements 
to attack her one night, but had been compelled to postpone it for 
want of arras, and had scattered to various places in the city, 
several of us to the ' Laclede Club House,' a sort of headquarters 
for young Southerners and sympathizers. I had been there a 
short time, when a message was brought up-stairs to me that some 
one wished to see me and some other person, I forget who, at once. 
I ran down stairs and found Campbell standing in the hall (he 
not having come up-stairs, as he had not joined the club), and he 
immediately commenced telling tliis other person and myself that 
he knew where we could get arms, and our plan might he resumed, 
and while explaining, he stood between me and the staircase, his 
arm resting on my shoulder. Just then Mr. Wm. McGinnis, who 
was subsequently killed in Kentucky, on General Morgan's staff, 
came running down the steps to hear the news, and, as he came, a 
revolver slipped from his belt and exploded. I laughed, and said 
that was a signal of war, or something to that effect. Campbell 
said nothing for a moment, then very quietly remarked, ' I believe 
I am shot,' at the same time pressing heavily on my shoulder, as 
if about to fall. We cuigiit him, however, laid him on tiie sofa, 
and convoyed him to Dr. Pall«n's, where he remained until his 
recovery. 

" After the break up at Camp Jackson, most of his old com- 
rades rendezvoused at Memphis, and organized the 1st Missouri 
Infantry, under command of Colonel, subsequently Major-General, 
2g" 



402 THE U^CIVEESITY MEMORIAL. |jyiay, 

John S. Bowen. Campbell joined us, as well as I remember, 
at that place, and messed in Company F. The regiment Aras soon 
moved up to New Madrid, then to Columbus, Kentucky. Hugh 
A. Garland was Captain, a man named Douglas 1st Lieutenant, 
and myself 2d Lieutenant, of Company F. At Columbus I was 
made Adjutant, and Campbell took my place as 2d Lieutenant. 
Shortly afterwards the command moved to Camp Beauregard, in 
southern Kentucky. Here Colonel Bowen was promoted, and 
placed in command of the post. I was made A. A. G. of the 
command, and there being thus a vacancy as regimental Adjutant, 
Campbell was selected to fill the position. 

" Our command was subsequently moved to Bowling Green, as 
part of General Sidney Johnston's army, and of course Campbell 
was Avith us through all that time, seeing hard service of every 
sort, except fighting, especially during the evacuations of Bow- 
ling Green and Nashville, and the long march to Corinth, Miss. 

" Shiloh was the first battle in which we were engaged, and 
here, about the middle of the first day, Campbell was shot 
again. We all thought it was a mortal wound, and I telegraphed 
to his mother, who, Avith his sister, found him and nursed him 
back to life. After his recovery, he rejoined us, I think, at Port 
Gibson and Grand Gulf, where we lay for some time, until Grant 
made his movement around Vickshurg. He was made Captain 
of Company A, of his old regiment, on his return from Virginia, 
and commanded it the rest of the time. In the battle of Port 
Gibson he was not engaged, his regiment being occupied in watch- 
ing a ford from which danger was apprehended. Compeljcd to 
evacuate Grand Gulf, we were in a few days engaged in the battle 
of Baker's Creek, or Champion Hill. Here his command, and 
especially his regiment, distinguished itself, as it always did, pre- 
eminently, recovering poor Joe Anderson's artillery, breaking the 
enemy's victorious advance, changing it into rout and confusion, 
and gaining what would have been a decided victory if the right 
wing under Loring had sustained us at all. 

" In this fight, after a fierce contest, we gained possession of the 
Jackson road, and our troops being out of ammunition, halted 
awhile. Campbell's company was near the left of the regiment. 
Captain Edmondson's on the left. In the pause, Campbell 
walked up to Edmondson and asked if he had any ammunition, 
his company being out. Edmondson replied that he had not, but 



1S03.] 



THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 403 



had sent a sergeant aucl some men to get it from the cartridge- 
boxes of the dead. Campbell then turned to go to his position, 
and had walked but a few steps when he was struck — this time 
througli the head. He did not fall heavily, but sank forward 
gradually on his face. They raised him up, but he was to all 
intents dead, so they laid him under a tree, turned the skirts of 
his coat over his shattered head, and could do no more for as 
iioble a man and as pure a gentleman as ever wore the gray. . . . 
" Vicksburg and all its troubles followed, and I have merely 
heard that his remains were found and carried home. There 
seemed to be a fate against Campbell : wounded before the 
opening of the war in our regions, wounded, it v\'as supposed 
mortally, in his first battle, and wounded to death in his 
second "I am yours truly, 

R. R. HUTCHIXSOX." 

The following is the copy of a note written in pencil on the eve 
of the battle of Shiloh, and found in Captain Carrington's 
pocket after he was removed from the field : — 

"Dear Mother : — 

" I have but a few moments to write, as we have been ordered 
to prepare to attack a column that threatens our lines. I wish, 
my dear mother, to express again to you my filial aifection, and, 
should I fall, that you may know that, living or dying, I am your 
most affectionate son; and that when I strike, it will be as much 
for your honor as for mine. Love to brother and sisters. Fare- 
well. Your son, 

^y. C. p. Carrington." 

His fall was announced by Dr. Moses, Surgeon in the command 
in a letter bearing date, — 

"Yazoo City, 3Ia>/ 20th, 1863. 
' "Mrs. Carrington : 

" T have been requested by several mutual friends of your son 
and me to send you the sad tidings of his death. He was killed 
at the late fight near Edward's Depot, on the Vicksburg and 
Jackson Rail Road, on Saturday last. His wound was imme- 
diately mortal, and received Avliile, as usual, most gallantly leading 
his men into a fight, than which none of the Avar has been more 
fierce. 



404 THE UjS'IVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [-May, 

" As I have for several years intimately known Campbell, at 
home and in camp, I need not say that I, with all his friends, most 
deeply mourn his early death. Loved for his virtues, admired for 
his intellect, and respected for all those qualities which make an 
honest man, we can but regret that we are to be without his cheer- 
ful companionship and hospitable friendship. We all loved him. 
His death was such as only the brave and good love to die. . . . 
" I am, madam, most respectfully, 

"G. A. Moses, 

Surgeon, C S. A" $ 

Then followed one to Colonel T. L. Preston : — 

"Jackson, Miss., June 3d, 1863. 
"My Dear Uncle : — 

" The General received a letter from Aunt Eliza in reference to 
Campbell. The letter was dated eight days after the fight on 
the Big Black river, where poor Campbell was killed. "We fell 
back so hastily from the battle-field as to prevent my seeing after 
his body. Two Captains in the same regiment saw him after 
death. Captain Kenelley, wlio did not get into Vicksburg Avith 
his regiment, knows where he is buried. I will make every exer- 
tion to see Captain Kenelley, and will mark the precise locality, 
so we may have the mournful satisfaction of I'ecovering all that is 
left of one who was so dear to all who knew hira, and more par- 
ticularly to those who are bound by the loving ties of consanguinity. 
All of his comrades in arms represent him, as he truly was, to be 
a noble, high-minded, and brave gentleman. All of his company 
loved him with unselfish devotion. His loss will be sincerely felt 
by others than his relations. Those who knew him in St. Louis 
agree that he was universally loved and respected. 

" She whose maternal care and love reared so noble a son 
deserves first of all our sympathy, and certainly she has it. Gen- 
eral Johnston was much moved at hearing of his death, and is now 
performing the mournful duty of informing Aunt Eliza. ... 
" Yours affectionately, 

"W. Hamptox, Jr." 

We give also an extract from a letter written by an officer of 
the 1st Missouri Kegiment to a relative of Captain Cakeington, 
dated " Enterprise, July 24th, 1863 " :— 



]efi3.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 405 

" It was a hard-fought battle, yet defeat was ours. In this 
battle our regiment lost one hundred and ninety-six men in 
killed, wounded, and missing. Prominent among the dead was 
one regretted more than any other man who fell on that hard-con- 
tested field, and that was your esteemed kinsman. Captain W. C. 
P. Carringtox. He died where all true soldiers of the South 
would desire to die, in the van, battling for his country against 
her enemies." 

We conclude this sketch with the letter from General Joseph E. 
Johnston to Captain Carringtox's mother: — 

" Canton, June Sd, 1863. 
"3Ii/ Dear Cousin : — 

" I have just received your letter of the 24th of May, and read 
it with deep grief. I need not now tell you that the noble son of 
whom you then wrote has already fallen in battle — and fallen 
in a manner becoming his race and his own high character. 

" I do not write to tell you that he deserved all a mother's love 
and a mother's pride — you know all that far better than I; but 
I can at least assure you that in the army he was fully appreciated ; 
that his high and estimable qualities, soft virtues, and courage and 
loyalty, had won for him universal esteem and admiration. Of 
all that we have lost in this war, no one deserves to be longer wept 
for. May our merciful God give you strength to bear this grief. 
With assurances of ray poor sympathy, 

" I am very truly your friend and kinsman, 
"J/rs. Eliza H. Carrington. J. E. Johnston." 



STEPHEN DEVEAUX PALMER, 

Private, Company D, 4th South Carolina Cavalry. 

The name of Palmer recurs with mournful frequency in this 
volume. Its representatives — South Carolinians and kinsmen 
all — were not " lavish of words, but laggard in deeds." They 
were bold enough to endorse the idea of State Sovereignty, and 
brave enough to maintain tiieir opinions like men. As soldiers 
under arms, they trod the soil of the Carolinas and Virginia, of 



406 THE UKIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 



[May, 



Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. In the face of the foe they 
were not recreant to duty, and in their fall, one after another 
they marked with sufficient distinctness — if other marks were 
wanting — the successive years of the war. 

Stephen Deveaux Palmer was born at Mt. Moriah, the 
seat of the old French settlement, Jamestown, November 1st, 1840. 
His parents, Colonel Samuel J. Palmer and Marianne Gendron 
Palmer, were descended from the old Huguenot families of Gen- 
dron and Porcher. They both died while he was a mere boy. 

His earlier education was received at diiferent private and pub- 
lic schools in his native State. From that of the Rev. O. T. 
Porcher, at AVillington, Abbeville District, he was transferred to 
the University of Virginia in the fall of 1859. His design in 
attending this institution was to prepare himself for the pleasant 
life of a practical planter, that he might take charge of the estate 
which had descended to him through several generations of his 
ancestors, with all the advantages of a scientific education. 

But the secession of vSouth Carolina summoned him from Vir- 
ginia. In 1861 he joined a company of cavalry under Captain 
Thomas Pinckney, which was stationed on the coast between 
Onendaw Creek and the Santee River. This company afterwards 
united with others to form the 4th South Carolina Cavalry, under 
Colonel B. H. Rutledge. The regiment was then ordered to 
Pocotaligo, on the Charleston and Savannah Railroad, where it 
remained on outpost duty for about a year. From Pocotaligo it 
was called to Virginia, where, with the 5th and 6th South Caro- 
lina Cavalry, it formed the well-known brigade of General M. C. 
Butler. 

In Virginia, Stephen Palmer was prevented by sickness 
from engaging in any fight, until his brigade met Stoneman's 
Cavalry, under Averill, in Louisa county, May 11th, 1863. 
Here, though still feeble, and his horse in such a condition as to 
render him unfit for service, he exchanged with one of his com- 
rades and took his position in the line. It was his first engage- 
ment, and his conduct on the occasion, which was complimented 
by others, will be understood by the following extract from his 
own letter, written in the hospital at Charlottesville, and addressed 
to his uncle, Dr. John S. Palmer : — 

" On Saturday morning the enemy came up to Louisa Court- 
House, and we had to meet them. Butler's and Young's brigades 



1863.] 



THE UNIVEr.SITY MEMOKIAL. 407 



were the only two present. General Butler was at the head of 
our regiment. Our squadron, being the first line, had to engage 
the enemy. After marching about a mile from the Court-House, 
our pickets informed General Butler that the enemy had fortified 
themselves a short distance do^rn the road, and he ordered our 
squadron to charge and drive them back. We charged under a 
pretty heavy fire from the enemy, who maintained their position until 
we got within twenty-five yards of them; they then wheeled and 
dashed back as fast as they possibly could, throwing away their 
overcoats, &c., as they ran. Being eager to overtake them, I dashed 
forward at full speed and passed the main portion of our command, 
four or five being still ahead of me at the time. I soon overtook 
and passed them. Finding I could not reach the flying enemy 
with my sword, I endeavored to draw my pistol, but it had slipped 
too far behind me. I continued the pursuit until I reached their 
reserve force of about a hundred men, and drawing my pistol, 
before I could fire, felt my foot sting as if struck by a stick. 
Finding myself cut off from my command, I fired five shots into 
the crowd, wheeled and dashed for the road, passing several of 
the Federals, who kept up a lively fire on me from the time I 
started until I got out of reach. One man, as I passed, swung 
his gun and struck at me, but fortunately missed me. One shot 
passed through the neck of the horse I rode, but did not seriously 
hurt him. I then went to the rear and had my foot examined 
and it was ibund that a pistol-ball had entered just below the 
ankle, passed around the foot, and come out at the heel. I was 
then assisted into an ambulance and carried to the Court-House. 
From there, on our Avay to the hospital at Trevillian's, we were 
captured by a flanking party of the Federals. I was stripped of 
everything I had about me ; my watch a^id revolver were the 
most valuable ai tides. ■ While they were taking us off, our 
artillery played upon us, and the driver of the ambulance in 

which I rode was killed by a shell I hope to be home in 

a short time from this." 

But he never got further than the hospital from which his letter 
was written. His wound, after seeming for some days to be doing 
well, assumed a malignant character, and from it, after intense 
suffering, he died June 2Sth, 186 3. When conscious that his end 
was near, he wrote, through a friend, to his sisters in South Caro- 
lina, assuring them of his resignation and iiis confidence in the 



408 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. [jung, 

Redeemer. During his sufferings he was attended by the Rev. 
Mr. Meade, of the Episcopal Ci)urch ; and "vvhen these were past, 
he was laid to rest in the University l)urying-ground. 



WILLIAM G. BRAWNER, 

Captain, Prince William County Partisan Rangers. 

William Gardner Brawner, son of Basil and Malinda 
Brawner, was born on the 17th of October, 1829. His jiarents 
resided at that time at Tudor Hall, the estate upon which Manas- 
sas Junction is located, and whose fields afterwards became the 
historic camp and battle-ground known in Confederate annals as 
Manassas. Here he continued to reside, except when at school in 
the city of Alexandria, until the year 1855, when he became a 
student of law at the University of Virginia. 

At college the writer knew Braavner quite well. He was a 
man of commanding figure, tall and stalwart, with an arm of 
muscle well calculated to swing the sabre of a partisan. His 
features were rather passionless, and liis student-life seemed to be 
less subject than usual to those external impressions incidental to 
a residence among hundreds of young men. He quietly pursued 
his studies, not excited by the approach of examinations, nor 
beguiled into indolence when they had passed by. At the end 
of his second session at the University he located at Brentsvillc, 
in his native county, and entered upon the practice of his pro- 
fession. 

When the convention was called at Richmond to decide upon 
the course which Virginia should pursue in view of the impend- 
ing disruption of the Union, Mr. Brawxer was sent as a dele- 
gate to that body from Prince William, and represented his county 
in all its sessions. At the final adjournment of the convention in 
June, after the passage of the ordinance of secession, he returned 
to his home and took command of the 36th Regiment of Virginia 
Militia, which was called into the field shortly before the battle 
of Bull Run, July 19th. 

Soon after the first battle of Manassas the militia were remanded 
to their homes, and Colonel Brawner set about raising a com- 



j8(;3.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 409 

pany of cavalry, to be used as partisan rangers. This was soon 
done, and he entered the Confederate service in command of his 
troop. 

Tlie materials in the writer's possession do not enable hira to 
follow Captain Brawxer through all the details of his active 
life as a partisan chieftain. That it was full of dangers, hard- 
ships, and thrilling incidents, no one of this age will need to be 
tokl. In the campaign against General Hooker he Avas slightly 
wounded near Fredericksburg, though not long detained from the 
field. When General Lee invaded Pennsylvania, Stuart's cavalry 
crossed the Potomac near Washington and made the circuit of the 
Federal array. It was during this expedition that Captain 
Bra"\vner lost his life. While leading his men in a charge upon 
the enemy near Seneca Mills, in Maryland, on the 11th of June, 
1863, he fell, mortally wounded. His body was brought back to 
his native soil and buried in Alexandria, the scene of his school- 
boy days. 

On the 15th of June the Prince William Partisan Rangers, 
belonging then to W. H. F. Lee's brigade, held a meeting, and 
adopted the following resolutions in honor of their lamented 
commander : — 

" 1. That in the death of Captain W. G. Brawxer, who was 
killed while gallantly leading a charge against the enemy, in 
Maryland, on the 11th day of June, 1863, our country has lost a 
brave and efficient officer. 

*' 2. That his name will long be cherished and held sacred in the 
hearts of the remaining portion of his comrades, as a patriot who 
liad responded to his country's call in defence of those rights so 
near and dear to us all. 

"3. That the members of this company express their heartfelt 
sympathy for the bereaved family and friends of our departed 
comrade, and in doing so bid them remember the noble cause and 
deep oppression of our beloved and down-trodden country. 

" 4. That a copy of the proceedings of this meeting be forwarded 
to tlie family of the deceased, and published in the Richmond 
papers." 

A few weeks afterwards the following lines, written by "A. C. 
T." in memory of Captain Brawner, and dedicated to his sisters, 
appeared iu print : — 



410 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL, ^j^^^^ 

Another of Virginia's sons 

Upon the altar lain, 
Another of her gallant ones 

For home and country slain. 

" Killed in the charge ! " — our hearts beat quick, 
His noble name to hear ; 
There is a doubt ; yet "vve grow sick 
With apprehensive fear 

" Fell in the charge ! " — alas ! 'tis true : 
A soldier from his side 
Brings news of " glorious victory," ; 
But that his " Captain died/^' 

Fell, leading on a gallant band 

Against the invading foe; 
His voice was first to give command, 

His hand to deal a blow ! 

Ah, many a heart will mourn for him, 

The friend of other days, 
And many a lip will render him 

The meed of well-earned praise. ; 

"We weep for him, the brave and true 

As ever fell in fight — 
As ever blade to battle drew 

For Home and for the Right ! 

The names are many : " wounded," " killed," 

Oft meet the ear and eye ; 
But none within the saddened heart 

Calls forth a deeper sigh. 

An only brother, only son. 

So generous, noble, free. 
Has follen in the glorious cause 

Of " Right and Liberty ! " 

Oh ! twine a garland for his name ; 

Let it immortal be ! 
And write it on the scroll of fame — 

He died our homes to free ! 

lu these stanzas and resolutions two statements stand out in 
bold prominence : — " He fell while gallantly leading a charge 
against the enemy." " He died to free his home." The first of 
these reminds one of the brave Sergeant-Major Edmund Fon- 
taine, who rushed on to death when the Colonel ordered the 
charge at First Manassas; of William Latane, who fell, as his 
General said, " leading his squadron in a brilliant and successful 
charge;" of Benjamin Harrison, who volunteered to lead a regi- 
ment at Malvern Hill, and " fell, pierced with seven wounds, 
near the enemy's batteries ; " of William Baylor, who, at Second 
Manassas, " caught up from the field the standard of the 33d, and 



1SC3' 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 411 



while Avaviug forward tlie colors and cheering on the charge, fell 
iu death ; " of Elliott Healey, who perished in the van on the 
same field, as he dashed forward shouting, " Victory and glory 
once more on the plains of Manassas ! " 

It was because they were fighting for their country, their 
homes — pro aris et focis, as has been fitly said — that they 
rushed thus impetuously to the battle's edge. AVell did they 
know that the liope of the land lay in the point of the sword, and 
under the inspiration of a pure patriotism they dared anything, 
everything. 

The cause for which they struggled is lost ; the country for 
which they did battle so valiantly has no name except in history. 
But though the land that gave them birth be down-trodden and 
impoverished for years to come, even as was William Braw- 
ler's home in the years of the war, still the lustre of their deeds 
will endure, and their names will be a possession forever to those 
whose principles are not changed by the triumph of brute force. 
They died for their country : could any do more ? 



SAMUEL ABRAM RIDBICK, 

Private, Company A, 13tli Virginia Infantry. 

The subject of this memorial was a native of Riddicksville, 
North Carolina, and was born November 19th, 1842. His 
father, Abram Riddick, a Virginian by birth, removed in early 
life from Nansemond county to North Carolina. A man of large 
means — the result of an active and succ&ssful life as a merchant 
and a farmer — he is no less distinguished for that practical char- 
ity which endears one to the poor. His mother — who was Miss 
Ann ]\Iaria Dillard, of Sussex county, Virginia, an accomplished 
and beautiful woman — died when he was but a child. 

After the usual routine of neighborhood schools, he was sent to 
Oxford, North Carolina, to be prepared for college, and thence, 
in October, 1860, to the University of Virginia, where he devoted 
himself chiefly to the study of the physical sciences. He Avas a 
boy of good order of mind, Avith argumentative powers preco- 
ciously developed, and had purposed to spend a term of years at 



412 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[June, 



the University. But before the close of the session, " the com- 
plexion of the times" had sadly changed, and, in June, 1861, he 
returned home, anxious to enter the army. He soon received the 
appointment of Lieutenant in the Xortli Carolina State troops, in 
a company then being made up ; but there was delay in its organi- 
zation, and he, unwilling to wait longer, entered the service by 
attaching himself, as a private, to a cavalry company from South- 
ampton county, Virginia, which was then on duty on the James 
river. This company was officially known as Company A, 13th 
Kegiment. Assuming tlius voluntarily the duties of a soldier, it 
is not strange that, by strict attention to them, he soon commended 
himself to the esteem and admiration of his comrades and officers. 
Of the engagements in which he participated, the following 
may be mentioned : — The cavalry fight at Williamsburg, Septem- 
ber 9th, 1862; those with Stoneman during his raid in Virginia; 
the severe battle of Middleburg, June 3d, 1863, and the sundry 
engagements of less importance on the following three or four 
days ; the capture of the wagon-train between Rockville and 
Washington city ; and, lastly, the battle at Hanover, York county, 
Pennsylvania, June 30th, 1863, where, while gallantly charging 
the enemy, he fell mortally wounded, and died the next day, 
July 1st. 

It was gratifying indeed to his father and other relatives to 
hear, through a young lady of Hanover, that the wounded and 
dying soldier received every attention and kindness from her 
family. If it be true that "kind words shall never die," surely 
deeds also like these are immortal. This, at least, is true, tliat 
they who are enemies in name but friends in deeds, who by their 
timely and tender ministrations fulfilled the offices of kindred to 
this young man in his last hours, are gratefully remembered by 
those of his own blood, and esteemed, not as enemies, but as 
friends — as more than friends and not less than kinsmen. 

In the death of Samuel Riddick — to say nothing of the inter- 
ests of society, or, what is more, of the vacancy thus created in his 
family circle — the Confederacy lost a vigorous and hearty sup- 
porter. One of his officers remarked of him, in reference to the 
preparation of this paper, " Too much cannot be said in his 
praise — a braver soldier I never knew." After the war, his 
remains were removed to North Carolina and interred in the 
family burying-grouud. 



1863] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 413 



AUSTIN BROKENBROUGH, 

Captain, Company D, 55th Virginia Infantry, and A. A. A. and I. G., 
Heth's Old Brigade. 

Few of our young men entered the service of the Southern 
Confederacy with more to stimulate them to noble deeds than 
Austin Brokexbrough had. An honorable ancestry looked 
down from the past upon him, and he had in his large, living con- 
nexion "a cloud of witnesses," Avho, many of them in high official 
positions, adorned the Virginian character for intellect and moral 
integrity. 

The first of the name known in Virginia was William Broken- 
brough, who served as colonel in the British army during colonial 
times, and, since he wrote himself Gent., must have been highly 
reputable before the Revolution. He settled in the Northern 
Neck, and married Elizabeth, daughter of Major Moore Fantleroy, 
who in 1651 purchased from the aborigines a large tract of land 
on the Rappahannock river, above and below the creek of the 
same name, and located upon it. 

Colonel Brokenbrough had four sons, Austin ; who was in the 
English army with Washington, under Gen. Braddock ; Newman, 
Moore, and John. Dr. John Brokenbrough, the youngest of these, 
married Miss Sarah Roane, and was the father of Judge William 
Brokenbrough, of the Court of Appeals; Dr. John Brokenbrough, 
of Richmond, President of the Bank of Virginia; Thomas Bro- 
kenbrough, also of Richtnond ; Arthur S. Brokenbrougli, first 
Proctor of the University of Virginia; and Dr. Austin Broken- 
brough, of Ta^jpahannock. Among the nearest relatives of these 
gentlemen through their mother — whose family, like that of their 
grandmother. Miss Faunt Le Roy, were Huguenot refugees — 
may be mentioned because of their distinction, Thomas Ritchie, 
of the Richmond Enquirer ; Judge Spencer Roane, of the Court 
of Appeals ; William H. Roane, United States Senate ; John 
Roane, United States Congress, and Judge Thomas Ruffin, of 
North Carolina. 

Dr. Austin Brokenbrough married Miss Frances Blake, whose 
paternal grandfather was an Englishman. Her mother was the 
daughter of Adam Alridge, the owner of extensive lands in Jeffer- 
son county. Mrs. Frances Brokenbrough is remembered as a 



414 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



woman of brilliant intellect and as one of the Vice-Presidents of 
the Mt. Vernon Association. The children of tliis marriage were 
Austin, the subject of this sketch, Benjamin, and several daughters, 
one of whom married Dr. L. H. Robinson, and another Colonel 
John M. Brokenbrough. 

Captain Austin Brokenbrough was born in Tappahannock, 
Essex county, Virginia, January 18th, 1842. In the fall of 1859, 
he entered the University as an academic student. " While at 
college," says one who was his contemporary there, " he was admired 
and respected for his elegant and decorous bearing; for his scho- 
larship and character." Another, a lady relative, writes of the 
hopes with which she once looked forward "to see him outshine 
all the talented men of his family." He was a young man of 
chivalrous spirit, frank, ingenuous and full of soul, l)ut with a 
certain dignity and even something of hauteur of bearing. He 
returned to the University in 18G0, but before the close of the 
session he had become a member of the 55th Virginia Infantry. 
He afterwards aided in raising a company in which, at its organi- 
zation, he was made 1st Lieutenant, and after the battles around 
Richmond, promoted Captain. In these battles he behaved with 
conspicuous gallantry, winning for himself an enviable name. He 
was on all the great fields, from Mechanics ville to Gettysburg, and 
displayed such courage and talent as an officer that he was regarded 
as a man of military genius. At Cold Harbor he was wounded; 
at Chancellorsville he was again wounded, but ere he was convales- 
cent he was at the post of duty and of danger. 

At the time of the Gettysburg fight, Captain Brokenbrough 
was acting as Assistant Adjutant and Inspector General of Heth's 
old brigade, then commanded by Colonel J. M. Brokenbrough, 
and forming part of General Heth's Division. How efficient he 
was in this capacity is testified by the fact that Major Harrison, 
the Division Inspector, on the day before that great battle began, 
told him, in the presence of many witnesses, that if all the Brig- 
ade Inspectors worked as he did, he himself would have very 
little to do. Heth's Division opened the attack on the first day 
at Gettysburg, and Captain Brokenbrough commanded the 
battalion of sharpshooters detailed from his brigade. Late in the 
day, in a fierce assault upon the enemy, he and Adjutant L. R. 
Williams, of the same regiment, were contestants for the capture 
of one of the Federal colors. They grasped the flag almost 



j^g(.3.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 415 

simultaneously, and both claimed it. Not long after, when the 
lines of the enemy had been broken, and Avhile the Confederate 
forces Avere in hot pursuit. Captain Brokexbrough was shot 
through the arm and chest, the minie ball passing through both 
lungs. Pie was borne from the field immediately, and received 
every attention from kind nurses and surgeons. Being aware of 
the nature of his wound from the moment he was struck, he knew 
that he could not live. His chief care seemed to be about the 
welfare of his younger brother, Benjamin, who at that time was 
with General Stuart on his raid in Maryland. His thoughts, like 
Captain Davidson's at Chancellorsville, w^ere constantly upon his 
widowed mother, whom he knew his own death would leave, in a 
few hours, leaning more than ever upon his only brother. When 
not under the influence of opiates, he talked much on this subject, 
and left as his last message to Ben, that he must seek some less 
exposed position in the army ; that as long as both were living, 
it was very well that both should be in the line, but that now it 
was due to his mother he should be careful of himself. To Adju- 
tant Williams, too, with whom he had had the contest for the 
Federal colors, he sent word that he relinquished all claim to the 
prize, and that he (Williams) must have it. The act, beautiful 
because of its magnanimity, was characteristic of the man. 

On the evening of the 2d of July, Avhile the battle was raging, 
he asked a friend at his side if they Avere not fighting. The reply 
being in the affirmative. Captain Brokenerougii rose from his 
couch, almost in the article of death, to go too. A little later, 
and his brother-in-law, Dr. L. H. Robinson, Assistant Surgeon 
in the brigade, made him a visit. " The first thing he said," Avrote 
the Doctor from the battle-field, " was, ' Have you heard from 
Ben?' He could not talk much, and I had not the heart to 
annoy him witli questions. He said he was not afraid to die — 
that no tongue could tell how much he was suffering, but he 
thought it unmanly to complain. Tom Wright, who was with 
him much, said he had never before witnessed such heroic fordfitde. 
He expired in an hour (about 7 P. M.) as calmly and easily as 
any one I ever saw. Having grasped my hand just before, with 
a most pleasant expression of countenance, he then said he wanted 
to turn on his side, which I helped him to do, and in a minute he 
ivas dead.'^ He was buried on the turnpike, about half-way 
between Cashtown and Gettysburg. On the 3d of July Benjamin 



416 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[July, 



Brokeubrough arrived, but after the burial ; he had, however, the 
mournful pleasure of turfing the grave of his only brother, whose 
latest solicitation was in regard to his safety. 

" It is hard," wrote Mrs. McGuire, sister to Judge Broken- 
brough, of Lexington, Virginia, and first cousin to Austin 
Brokexbrough, in her *' Diary of a Southern Refugee," under 
date July 14th, 1863, — "it is hard to tiiink of so many of our 
warm-hearted, brave Southern youths now sleeping beneath the 
cold clods of Pennsylvania. AYe can only hope that the day is 
not far distant when we may bring their dead bodies back to their 
native soil." After the war, the turf was broken and the clods 
raised from the grave of Captain Brokenbrough, and his 
remains were transferred to Tappahannock, where they were 
deposited, with Episcopal service, in the family burying-ground. 

As a testimonial to his soldierly qualities, the following extract 
may be made from a letter of his commanding officer, dated 
"Camp near Hagerstown, Maryland, July 8th, 1863":— "His 
efficiency in the performance of his every duty was fully appre- 
ciated by all, and many, many times has he been pronounced the 
most promising young officer in the array." 

AVe quote also, in closing, from an obituary of Captain Broken- 
brough, written by Lieutenant T. R. B. Wright, of Tappahan- 
nock, an intimate friend in boyhood, at college, and in the army : — 
"At home," says Lieutenant Wright, " he was loved as a dutiful 
son and aifectionate brother. In the community and village in 
which he lived, he was an ornament. As an officer, he excelled. 
AVith a bold nerve, quick conception, and determined resolution, 
adorned and accompanied by everything manly, he commanded 
the respect of all, and proved himself a martinet in military know- 
ledge. With his decorum, his suavity of manner, his kindness 
and modesty, no man ever stood higher in the estimation of his com- 
rades, either socially or in his military capacity ; no man was more 
beloved. . . The war has unmasked many heroes, and the history 
that records its triumphs and trials will give to the ashes of the dead 
and the laurels of the living one compassing halo. But few who 
have acted their parts have been more worthy of the encomiums 
and honorable laudations due to a patriot gentleman and a brave 
and gallant soldier, than the subject of this humble tribute — not 
one has died more gloriously." 




'/^/Ij. C^^yt^jL ■'U/lyJ 



J/'h.,.''^ 






l8G3.;i THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 41' 



EGBERT T. MASSIE, 

Captain of Engineers. 

It is not meet in these memorial pages to discuss the causes 
which led to the late civil war, nor to vindicate the action of the 
States lately iu rebellion. Time and the future historian will do 
justice to these themes. The people of Virginia, at least, depre- 
cated the arbitrament of arms in the settlement of the long pend- 
ing controversies between the North and the South. An honest 
effort was made at Washington in the beginning of 1861, by the 
Peace Commissioners of Virginia, to secure from the Congress of 
the United States such terms of adjustment as would avert the 
impending disruption of the Union and its consequent evils; but 
the eifort was unsuccessful. Events moved rapidly in the direc- 
tion of war. The firing upon Fort Sumpter on the 12th of April, 
1861, which "fired the Northern heart," and the proclamation of 
the President of the United States of the 15th of the same month, 
which chilled the Southern love for the Union, precipitated the 
issue; Virginia, whose fair domain was to be the battle-field, was 
left only the choice of the banner under Mdiich she should fight. 
The choice was not doubtful. It Avas dictated neither by the press 
nor by politicians, but was the prompt, spontaneous and well-nigh 
universal act of a brave people, in sympathy with its kindred and 
in opposition to what appeared to be the overthrow of constitu- 
tional liberty — for the call to arras to overrun and subdue States 
appeared to be no less. 

The attitude assumed by Virginia was the result of earnest and 
sincere conviction, as was demonstrated not only by the readiness 
of all classes to take up arms, but by the constancy and fortitude 
with which they sustained a. four years' struggle, in which their 
homes were desolated and tlieir loved ones hurried to untimely 
graves. In the progress and end of the struggle few of her people, 
however honored or however humble, escaped the common calami- 
ties of personal bereavement and material ruin. Have their suffer- 
ings and sacrifices been in vain ? Assuredly not. AVe cannot scan 
the purposes of Providence nor interpret His ways, but doubtless 
by sucii means He often works in the accomplishment of ultimate 
good for individuals and for nations. 

Nathaniel Massie, then of Augusta, now of Albemarle county, 
27 



418 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOKIAL. ^j„,j.^ 

Virginia, gave six sons and a son-in-law to tlie defence of his 
native State and the service of the Confederacy. It fell to the lot 
of few to make so many offerings, and none could make more 
noble. Distinguished for intelligence and public spirit, for integ- 
rity and benevolence, Mr. IMassie had through a long life proved 
the model of the good citizen and Christian gentleman. His 
numerous children, inheriting the characteristics of a worthy father, 
had by his care and considerate attention enjoyed the advantages 
of the best scholastic as well as parental training. This family, 
embracing in its head the highest patriarchal worth, and in its 
members the brightest promise of future honors and usefulness, 
encountered in full measure the bereavements and sorrows of the 
war. One son was wounded and maimed for life ; another disabled 
by exposure and hardship ; a third for many weary months a pris- 
oner of war; two others died of diseases contracted in the public 
service; and still another, together with a son-in-law, fell in 
battle. One only returned unharmed to the paternal roof. 

Robert Thomas Massie, one of this noble band of brothers, 
and the fourth son of Nathaniel Massie, was born at Waynes- 
borough, Virginia, on the 16th day of February, 1834. His 
mother, Elizabeth Frances, Avas the sister of the late General 
David Rodes, of Lynchburg, the father of General Robert E. 
Rodes, of Alabama, Avho so highly distinguished himself in the 
Army of Northern Virginia, and who fell at AVinchester on the 
19th of September, 1864, crowning a career of patriotism and gal- 
lantry with a noble death on the field of battle. 

Robert, after careful training in good preparatory schools, 
entered Washington College, at Lexington, Virginia, in Septem- 
ber, 1850, and graduated Avith distinction as Bachelor of Arts, 
July 1st, 1853. In tlie fall of the same year he took charge of a 
classical school at Halifax Court-House, Virginia, where he re- 
mained two years, making many very warm friends, and laying 
the foundation of a high reputation as a teacher. 

In October, 1855, he entered the University of Virginia as a 
student, and there prosecuted his studies for two years with eminent 
success and distinction. He graduated in all the schools necessary 
for the degree of ISIaster of Arts, except Greek and Modern 
Languages. While he made himself thoroughly acquainted with 
Avhatever subject of study he undertook, and proved himself equal 
to the mastery of any in literature or science, his strong partiality 



I8(;s.] 



THE UjS'IVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 419 



was for scientific subjects. He prosecuted the study of pure and 
mixed Mathematics and the physical sciences witli indefatigable 
ardor, and with a success that challenged the admiration of his 
Professors and marked him for eminence in scientific pursuits. 
His distinguished friend^ Professor Bledsoe, regarded him as the 
first mathematician of his age in this country, and signalized his 
appreciation of his merits by appointing him, in the year 1857, 
first Assistant Instructor in the School of Mathematics. He con- 
tinued in this position two years, and gave unqualified satisfaction 
not only to those more immediately interested in his labors, but 
to the Professors and students of the University generally. 

Contemporaneously with his induction into the corps of Assistant 
Instructors, the system of Licentiate Teachers was introduced. 
Under this system, the Faculty was authorized to license any gen- 
tleman, of suitable character, capacity, and attainments, to form 
classes for private instruction in any school of the University, in 
aid of and conformity to the public teachings of the Professors; 
such teachers to be compensated by fees agreed upon with their 
classes. During the session 1857-8, nine gentlemen of suitable 
qualifications undertook the office of Licentiates, and inaugurated 
the new system under auspices that promised satisfactory results 
to this class of teachers and to the University. Mr. Massie was 
not one of the original Licentiates, but entered the lists the fol- 
lowing session, 1858-9. His success Avas remarkable, and demon- 
strated the practicability of making licentiate instruction not only 
useful to students, but remunerative to instructors. The system 
at the beginning of the war fell into disuse, and has not since been 
reviv^ed to any notable extent. 

In September, 1859, he was elected Professor of Mathematics 
in Randolph Macon College, Virginia, an^ very soon thereafter 
entered upon the discharge of the duties of his new position. He 
remained at Randolph ISIacon two years, giving great satisfaction 
to the Trustees and friends of that institution, and adding not a 
little to his reputation as an able and efficient teacher. 

At the close of the session in 18G1, he went to the Confederate 
army, then at ^lanassas, and offered himself as a private in the 
ranks of the Rockbridge Artillery. He was always delicate in 
constitution, and had a congenital defect in one ankle, which ren- 
dered him, in the opinion of every one except himself, unfit for 
the campaign duties of a soldier. 



420 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[Jnly, 



Among other friends, General Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall), 
"who knew him well and appreciated him highly, protested against 
the step he proposed to take. He nevertheless presented himself 
as a recruit, and was, on examination by the surgeon, rejected as 
physically unfit for military service in the field. 

An opportunity soon offered, at the University of Virginia, for 
tlie useful but temporary employment of his high talents in the 
line of his chosen profession. At a meeting of the Board of 
Visitors on the 16th of September, 1861, leave of absence was 
granted for one year to Professor Bledsoe, in consideration of his 
employment in the War Office of the Confederate States. Mr. 
Massie was at the same time appointed Professor of INIathematics 
ad interim, to supply the temporary vacancy, but with the rank, 
emoluments, and duties of a regular Professor. How well he 
discharged his important duties will appear from the following 
testimony of the Board of Visitors, unanimously expressed and 
entered upon tlieir minutes the 10th of September, 1862: — ''Mr. 
Robert T. Massie, who for the past year has held the position 
of Professor of Mathematics ad interim, being relieved from duty 
by the return of the regular Professor, the Visitors feel it to be 
due to Professor Massie to place upon their records and to fur- 
nish to him an expression of their high satisfaction with the 
ability, energy, and fidelity with which he has discharged the 
duties of his position, and they regret that they have not the power 
to secure to the University, permanently, the benefit of his high 
qualifications and his great efficiency as a Professor in the depart- 
ment of science to which he has devoted himself." 

Such expressions from such a source imply merit of the highest 
order. The records of the Board of Visitors contain no higher 
tribute to any one who has ever filled a Professor's chair in the 
University of Virginia. 

After the close of the session of the University in the summer 
of 1862, a volunteer company of artillery was formed in the 
neighborhood of Randolph Macon College, composed chiefly of 
former students of that institution who had known Mr. Massie 
as Professor of Mathematics, and appreciated his high qualities. 
When they met for organization, they unanimously and without 
his knowledge elected him their Captain. He accepted the posi- 
tion, and was again about to make the effort to serve his country 
in the field. But the War Department about this time decided 



ISO] THE UJS'IVEPuSITY ilEMuKIAL. 421 

not to accept or equip any more volunteer artillery companies ; 
and he was thus again disappointed in his wish, dictated by a 
sense of patriotic duty, to bear a part in the hardships and dan- 
gers of the war. As it seemed out of his power to serve in the 
field, he asked for an appointment in the corps of Engineers. An 
appointment was conferred upon him with the rank of Captain, 
and he was assigned to duty in the Engineer Department at Rich- 
mond, on tlie 1st of January, 1863, under Colonel Alfred Rives, 
second in charge to Colonel J. F. Gilmer, Officer-in-Chief of the 
Department. 

The duties of Captain Massie in this Department were very 
laborious, urgent, and confining. He dischai'ged them greatly to 
the satisfaction of his superiors in office ; but never asking rest for 
an hour from the most anxious and wearing toil, on the approacii 
of summer his health began to fail, and in the beginning of July, 
1863, he suddenly broke down, and died on the 2d of that montli, 
after an illness of a few hours, as truly a martyr to the service of 
his country as his robust and heroic brother, Livingston, or any 
other kindred spirit who fell on the field of battle. 

The announcement of his death carried deep and sincere sorrow, 
not only to the bosoms of his kindred, but to all who had known 
him in life. Touching letters of sympathy and condolence Avere 
addressed to his aged father, by the head of the Engineer Bureau, 
by members of the Board of Visitors and Faculty of the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, and by friends widely scattered throughout 
the country ; for all thought that, tliough comparatively young, 
no ordinary man had passed away. The proceedings of tiie 
Faculty of the University on the occasion of his death, as entered 
on their minutes of the 4th of July, 1863, may serve as an ex- 
ponent of the estimate in which he was held by the cultivated 
public, and the general sorrow at his untimely end. They are as 
, follows : — 

" The Faculty having lieard, with deep regret, of the death of 
their late co-laborer. Professor Robeut T. Massie, which occurred 
at Richmond on the 2d inst., cannot pass over the sad event in 
silence. Well known to us as a student, as an Assistant Instructor, 
and more recently as Professor of Mathematics ad inter im, in this 
institution, we became impressed with the highest respect for his 
character, talents, and acquirements, and looked upon him as 
giving promise of eminent usefulness and distinction in the cause 



422 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. j-,,,^^ 

of learning. Called from his favorite pursuits by the state of his 
country, he was occupying, at the time of his death, an important 
position in the Engineer service of tlie Confederate States, and 
discharging its duties with conspicuous efficiency and fidelity. He 
has been cut off in early manhood and in the midst of usefulness. 
In testimony of our appreciation of his merits and as a tribute to 
his memory, — 

"liesolved, 1st, That we lament his death as a great loss to society 
to science, and the public service. 

" 2c?, That these proceedings be made of record, and that a copy 
be communicated to the father of the deceased, with a tender of 
our heartfelt sympathy in the affliction with Avhich himself and 
family have been visited." 

Mr. Massie had all the qualities of mind and character which 
go to make up a truly great man ; and such he would have become 
in the estimation of his countrymen if life and liealth had been 
continued to him in the usual measure. A friend, the confidant 
of his high aspirations, himself a "praised man,'^ has said of him, 
" I do not know that I have ever met with a man of so much 
steady purpose combined with so much intellect." It was the 
object of his honorable ambition to fill the chair of Mathematics 
at the University of Virginia when a suitable opportunity for pre- 
ferment offered. He had a strong desire for reputation founded 
on solid merit. The delicacy and dignity of his nature demanded 
of official station the endorsement of self-approval. He would 
have sought nothing except by honorable means, and he would 
have accepted no preferment for which he did not think himself 
fully qualified. Hence his unwavering zeal and diligence in the 
prosecution of his favorite science. During his earlier connection 
with the University, he was the author of some new and striking 
demonstrations in the Calculus, and at a later i:)eriod lie projected 
and partially filled up the outlines of a work on another branch 
of Mathematics, which competent judges believed, if he had lived 
to complete and publish it, would have placed his name high on 
the roll of the mathematical writers of his day. The exigencies 
of his country diverted him for a time from his favorite pursuits, 
but he never lost sight of his ultimate aim and purposes in life. 
Had he been spared to us by Providence, the usefulness he aimed 
at, and the honors he coveted as the seal of usefulness, would 
doubtless have been vouchsafed to him in full measure. 



iy,;3.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 423 

Handsome in person, gentle and pleasing in manners and 
address, richly endowed by nature with intellectual and moral 
gifts, and highly cultivated in head and heart, the crowning glory 
of this rare man was his Christian faith and charity. Perhaps 
few of earthly mould have passed through life with less of earthly 
stains. So faultless was his youth, that it cannot be said with cer- 
tainty when his Christian life began ; but it is known that he was 
an eminently consistent communicant in the Presbyterian Church 
from the twelfth year of his age to the timeof his death. He died, 
leaving to sorrow a multitude of friends, but in the full hope of 
a joyful immortality beyond the grave. The words of the lyric 
friend of Virgil well befit his monument — 

" Quis desiilcrio sit pudor aut modus 
Tarn cari capitis?" 



JOHN MOKRIS, 

Lieutenant, and Ordnance OlTicer, Pegram's Battalion of Artillery.* 

John Morris, the son of Dr. John Morris, of Goochland 
county, Virginia, and Susanna his wife, was born at his father's 
house in said county, in November, 1837. He obtained the first 
rudiments of his education at home, and was sent to several differ- 
ent teachers in his neighborhood until his fourteenth year, when 
he became the pupil of Napoleon B. Kean, Esq., who taught at 
the time a classical and mathematical school of high reputation. 
We have before us a letter from this gentleman, in which he speaks 
in glowing terms of his pupil's unvarying good conduct, his assi- 
duity in pursuing his classical and mathematical studies, and his 
tiuccess in these pursuits. He kept a journal of each pupil's every- 
day life, in which his deportment and standing in his class vrere 
recorded in arithmetical figures from to 5, and, upon looking 
over this book, he found that in three years JoHX Mouiiis's mark 
had never fallen below 5 and 4| for scholarship. His mind was 
romarkable, he says, for " thoroughness " in all his studies, 
although his specialty seemed to be mathematics. 

* The writer of this article requested lliat his name should not appear in connec- 
tion with it. He died, however, very soon after. and tliis wa.s douhtless the last pro- 
Uuctinn of liis pen. On this account, and after consultation with one of his nearest 
relatives, It has been thought not out of tasle to make the credit. 



424 THE UNIVEESITY I\IET\IOEIAL, fj„,y^ 

At the age of seventeen he left Mr. Kean for Hampden Sidney 
College, where he remained, however, not more than a year, when 
he joined the school of Mr. Samuel Schooler, in Caroline county, 
pr-^paratory to entering the University of Virginia. Mr. Schooler 
bore the same testimony to assiduity and acquirements that had 
previously been borne by Mr. Kean, and like that gentleman, 
became his \varni personal friend. 

When he entered the University, October, 1858, he was about 
twenty-one years old, in the full glow of health and the first blush of 
manhood. He was an exceedingly handsome young man, and liis 
graceful manners and unassuming deportment added greatly to the 
charm which personal beauty never fails to exercise upon those 
with whom it is brought into contact. His reception in the best 
circles of society was immediate and cordial. Nor was he less 
popular within the walls of the University itself. His admirable 
address won the hearts of his fellow-students, while his respectful 
deportment and his assiduity in pursuing the studies of his classes 
gained him the esteem of the Professors. Hoving already grad- 
uated in Latin, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Moral 
Philosophy, he would have taken the degree of M. A. at the com- 
mencement of 1860-61, had not the secession of Virginia called 
her sons to arms. 

He did not hesitate a moment. A deep and fervid enthusiasm 
and u daring courage, concealed under a quiet demeanor and 
unpretending address from the eye of the casual acquaintance — 
unknown, perhaps, until called forth by the occasion, even to 
himself — lay at the foundation of his character, and urged him 
forward in his duty. He immediately joined the Goochland 
Artillery, commanded by his intimate friend. Captain John H. 
Guy, and was made a Sergeant, which gave him the command of 
a gun. 

With all the enthusiasm of his nature, JoHX MoRRis began 
immediately to devote himself to the acquisition of the knowledge 
indispensable to his new position. In the language of Captain 
Guy, " He was one of those Avho seemed to feel that there rested 
on him a personal responsibility to meet fully every demand that 
the cause could make upon him. To be a soldier was with him 
something more than merely to enlist and drift along with the 
current. Regarding it as devolving upon him duties of a high 
character, he tasked all his energy and intelligence, neither of 



1863.] 



THE UNTVEKSTTY MEMORIAL. 425 



which Mas inconsiderable, to discharge them as he thought they 
should be discliarged. Blessed with a strong constitution ant? a 
powerful will, he bore the hardships and trials of campaign life 
without tiring, without shrinking, and without complaining. 
Keeping always in view the great object of his labors, he esteemed 
the difficulties in the way of its attainment as trifles unworthy of 
consideration. Hence his zeal never flagged, and no duty ever 
presented itself which he did not spring forward to discharge, not 
merely with the obedience of a thoroughly-drilled soldier, but 
with the alacrity and enthusiasm of a will superior to all difficul- 
ties. Gifted by nature with a superior mind which had been 
highly cultivated, he could not rest contented with the role of a 
mere automaton soldier, Avith whom " to obey orders" is the sum 
total of military duty. On the contrary, he was indefatigable in 
acquiring all the knowledge bearing upon his new profession 
which lay within his reach. A soldier from principle, he joined the 
army with a full determination to contribute as far as he could to 
the success of the cause. His whole soul was in that cause, and 
this led him to feel as lively an interest in the efficiency of the 
company as the Captain, and of the army as the General possibly 
could feel. Nor was he ever found wanting when an opportunity 
presented itself of personally contributing to these results." 

Tiie company in which John" Morris was a Sergeant Avent first 
into service under General Floyd, in Western Virginia. Its first 
battle was at Carnifex Ferry It lasted three hours and a half, 
during the whole of which he managed his piece with the utmost 
coolness, in face of a tremendous fire, both of artillery and small 
arms. As a proof of the efficiency with which the former arm 
was served, we have the official report of General Rosecranz, 
assigning to General Floyd sixteen pieces, although it is well 
known that he had but six in his army. The conduct of John 
Morris on this occasion was considered by Captain Guy sufficiently 
conspicuous to justify a letter of warm congratulation to his fatiier. 
" The coolness, courage, and skill," he said, " with Avhich he man- 
aged his piece could not have been excelled." 

It is Avell known that the campaign of General Floyd in 
Western Virginia was hard and trying to the endurance and dis- 
cii)line of officers and men beyond almost any other of the war. 
The subject of this sketch endured all its hardships and all its 
trials with dauntless resolution. At Cotton Hill, where the fight- 



426 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



ing consisted in a long artillery duel of nearly two weeks, he was 
always at his gun, always exposed to the fire of the enemy, and 
always performing the roughest service without ever once mur- 
muring or thinking of shirking his duty. In the heavy skirmish- 
ing which followed the retreat from that position, his behavior 
is spoken of by Captain Guy as gallant in the extreme. During 
this retreat, in a skirmish at McCoy's Mill, a panic seems to have 
suddenly seized a portion of our troops, and our cavalry was driven 
back pell-mell upon our army, and through the artillery, drawn up 
in the rear to check the advance of the enemy. On this occasion 
John Morkis stood cool and collected at his gun, serving it with 
great effect, in the face of the advancing foe, and in a position the 
peril of which was every moment increasing, until Colonel, after- 
wards General, Heth, with a small detachment, assisted by this 
battery, made a bokl stand and succeeded in checking the advance. 

At the termination of this campaign, his command was ordered 
to Kentucky, and his next service was in the three days' fight at 
Fort Douelson. Here his gallantry and conduct were such as his 
previous short career liad led his friends to expect. Upon the 
surrender of the fort, February 16th, he, with the other prisoners, 
was carried to Chicago. The fact of his captivity was brought to 
the notice of Hon. Edward Bates, Attorney-General of the United 
States, who was a relative, and had, in early life, been an intimate 
friend of his mother's family. By the intercession of this gen- 
tleman, he and the late John Pleasants, of Goochland, also a 
member of Captain Guy's company and a relative of Mr. Bates, 
were carried to Washington. The kindness of Mr. B. did not 
end here. He procured the release of both the young soldiers, 
on parole, and had Baltimore, certainly the most agreeable spot 
to which they could have been sent, assigned as the place of their 
residence. With a delicacy worthy of all praise, he gave directions 
that they should be supplied with such money as their expenses 
might require, rendering liimself resi)onsible for the same. The 
friends of these young men, both now no more, remember this 
generous conduct on the part of JNIr. Bates with undying gratitude. 

It is well known that a very large proportion of the population of 
Baltimore, comprising much of its wealth, influence, and fasliion, 
and composed of native Marylanders, Virginians, and otlier 
Southrons and their descendants, were at that time ardent friends 
of the Southern cause. Among them Johx Morris was received 



igfio] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 427 

with a warmth of hospitality which seemed to have no limit. 
Every house was thrown open to him. The short time he spent 
among these generous and warm-hearted people was a continued 
fete. His modest deportment, handsome person, graceful manners, 
and high intelligence, rendered him a favorite in all fashionable 
circles. To this day, so writes a friend to whom we appealed for 
information with regard to his sojourn in that city, he is remem- 
bered in these circles as the handsome young Virginian who lost 
his life at Gettysburg. To the last day of his life he retained a 
lively impression of the unbounded kindness of which he was the 
object, and the brilliant society of which he had been a favorite. 
That he should have been charmed with his reception was natural 
enough, for he had always been passionately fond of the society 
of ladies. 

Young Morris was exchanged in August or September, 1862, 
and immediately resumed his position as Sergeant of his company, 
which was also exchanged about the same time. About this time 
there was a great deficiency of ordinance officers in the army, 
and the situation requiring much intelligence and considerable 
mathematical knowledge, it was found hard to supply it. In 
April, 1862, Congress passed a law for the appointment of fifty 
or sixty officers of ordnance, who were first to be examined upon 
gunnery, and other mathematical subjects connected with the 
military })rofession. Johx Morris aj>plied to be examined for a 
lieutenancy of ordnance, and readily obtained it. In December, 
1862, or January, 1863, at the request of Colonel R. L. Walker, 
he reported as Lieutenant of Ordnance in his regiment. 

In the battle of Chancellorsville he was greatly exposed, 
rushing to the front and continuing in the hottest part of the 
fire during the whole engagement. He was warmly remonstrated 
with by his Colonel ; but he insisted that he did no more than 
his duty. In fact, his boiling courage, stirred by the roar of 
the combat, did not allow him to reflect with coolness upon the 
true line of his duty, which was to remain with his train and 
keep as clear of danger as was possible. In this he resembled 
some of the noblest spirits of whom history makes mention. It 
is certaiidy a fault to expose the person too much, but it is one 
which soldiers fiirgive in an officer most readily of all others. 
Coldness of spirit, on the contrary, they never forgive; nor do 
they ever respect the officer who has once been suspected of it. 



428 THE UJSnVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[July. 



A striking instance of the former sentiment Avas afforded by John 
Morris. According to the testimony of his commanding Colonel, 
he became the most popular young officer whom he (the Colonel) 
had ever seen. After the battle of Chancellorsville, Colonel 
Walker was appointed Corps Commander of Artillery. This 
appointment gave him the command of a number of regiments of 
artillery. He offered John Morris the appointment of Captain 
of Ordnance, bnt he declined it because, he said, his duty would 
require him to remain so far in the rear that he could see none of 
the fighting. 

We close this memoir with the following notice from the pen 
of Dr. J. W. Hines, of Louisa county, a gentleman of fine talents 
and attainments, who at the time alluded to was a Surgeon in the 
Confederate army : — 

"My acquaintance with Lieutenant John Morris commenced 
in the spring of 1863, when he was assigned to duty as Ordnance 
Officer of Pegram's Battalion of Artillery. From that time until 
his death I was intimately associated with him as friend and mess- 
mate. Possessing all the qualities of mind and heart, together 
with that grace of person and gentlemanly bearing, that make 
men attractive, he soon won the esteem and admiration of all Avith 
whom he came in contact. With a quiet and dignified demeanor 
there was blended a gentleness and cordiality of manner that 
carried a conviction of sincerity with all his professions. Not 
only was he deservedly popular with the officers of the battalion, 
but also by his conspicuous gallantry on the field he soon attracted 
the attention and extorted the admiration of the men, who were not 
accustomed to see those whose duties did not require them, share 
with them the dangers of battle. His unnecessary and almost 
reckless exposure of his life was the subject of much anxiety 
among his friends, Avho often expostulated with him, and endeav- 
ored to dissuade him from a course that must eventuate in a useless 
sacrifice of life. But his brave spirit disdained any other than the 
post of danger, and in every battle he was found side by side with 
the gallant Pegram, whose bravery, tested on a hundred fields, was 
proverbial throughout the army. 

" The following anecdote was told me by Lieutenant Morris of 
himself during the battle of Chancellorsville. In the very climax 
of the second day's battle, when the field was being swept by a 
perfect hurricane of shot and shelly General ' Jeb ' Stuart^ then in 



jgg;-] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 429 

command, observing liim, sent him to the line of infantry some 
paces in front of the position occupied by the artillery, with this 
very peculiar order : ' Go to the infantry line, pass along the 
whole length of the line, and tell every officer to hold the position 
at all hazards/ He dismounted, unwilling to risk his horse, to 
which he was greatly attached, to such a terrible fire as Avas then 
raking the whole line, proceeded on foot to the first officer he saw 
and delivered the order with this improvement upon it (as he 
observed) ' to pass the order doion the line,' instead of attempting 
to pass along the line himself, a thing utterly impossible under 
such a terrific fire. Thus the order was delivered in spirit, though 
not in letter ; tlie position was held, the enemy soon after dislodged 
and driven back, and the battle was won. 

" On the morning of the fatal day, July 2d, that closed his 
earthly career, as we arose from our bivouac, I said to him, 'Do 
not go into the fight to-day ; you have no business there. Besides, 
if you should be killed, you'll get no credit for it.' He replied, 
'I have business there.' The battle had opened with desultory 
firing — the infantry were deploying across the fields — the whole 
army was moving forward to the great struggle. Pegram, far in 
the van, as was his wont, was already engaging the enemy's bat- 
teries — firing and advancing, as the enemy slowly fell back to 
his lines on the heights of Gettysburg, on which the grand battle 
of July 3d was to be fought. 

"No sooner had the firing begun than Lieutenant MoERis, 
leavine: his train in the rear, hastened forward to the front. 
Passing the hill, upon Avhich some officers were standing, and 
which commanded a view of the whole field, he inquired of me 
for Pegram. Pointing out his position, I again referred to his 
useless risking of life. He made no reply, but putting spurs 
to his horse, his erect and graceful form soon disai)peared and 
was lost in the smoke and tumult of battle. Scarcely half an hour 
had elapsed when I saw a horseman rapidly approaching, Avho 
l)rought the sad news that Lieutenant Morris was mortally 
wounded. 

" Directing an ambulance to follow, I soon reached him, lying 
upon the spot where he had fallen. He was feeling his puise, 
and as I approached him he asked me, * Is there any chance for 
me to live?' Comforting liim as best I could under the circum- 
stances, I had him placed in the ambulauce and carried to the 
rear. 



4?)0 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. [-j,,,,.^ 

"When he received the fatal wound he was standing by one 
of the artillery officers, with his hand upon Ms shoulder, and the 
bridle-rein upon the otiier arm. They were congratulating each 
other upon the result of an engagement with the enemy's bat- 
teries, which they had just silenced and driven from their position. 
Just then a stray shell (unexploded) coming from a distant battery, 
struck him upon the knee-joint, carrying it away entirely, except 
a little skin on either side, and also breaking the bone of the thigh 
in the upper third. As was usual in such wounds, there was little 
or no haemorrhage, but the system was laboring under a great 
shock. He was carried back to the hospital, where every tiling 
was done to bring about reaction; but every means failed, and it 
was evident he was gradually sinking. 

" Though entirely conscious of his situation, he manifested no 
fear or dread of death. He never seemed impressed with the idea 
that the sacrifice he Avas about to make was a useless one, but bore 
his sufferings, which were great, with a fortitude that must have 
been supported by a consciousness of having discharged his duty. 
He expressed no regret, indulged in no repinings, left no messages 
for friends, and did not refer to death exce]>t once, when he felt 
himself growing weaker, remarking then, ' If you do not succeed 
in producing reaction soon, I cannot stand it much longer.' For 
some slight attention by the nurses just before his death he 
thanked them, and said he was sorry to be so much trouble to 
them. He lived about two hours after he received the wound, and 
his spirit passed away calmly and peacefully, amid the roar of 
battle ; and he now sleeps in an obscure grave, far from his native 
State which he so well loved." 

Let those censure who can have the heart to do so. For our 
own part we can find in our heart room only for pity and admira- 
tion — pity for the noble spirit which so freely poured f)rth its 
blood at what it considered, falsely perhaps, the call of duty ; 
admiration for the daring courage which made the sacrifice easy 
and natural. The kindness of heart and the exquisite urbanity 
which prompted the sufferer, in the very moment of death, to 
apologize to his attendants for the trouble he cost them, were highly 
characteristic of the man. AVhen the death-shot swept that ter- 
rible field, and thousands of victims fell beneath the storm, it 
reached no nobler or braver heart than that which beat in the 
bosom of John Morris. 



J803.] THE UNIVERSITY MESIORIAL. 431 

F. PENDLETON JONES, 

Lieutenaat, Brigadier-General John M. Jones's Staff. 

Francis Pendleton, son of Francis W. and Ann P. Jones, 
was born at Louisa Court House, Virginia, December 27th, 1841, 
and died September 2d, 18G3, of wounds received at Gettysburg, 
July 2d, 18G3. 

He was prepared for college in the excellent school of Mr. John 
P. Thompson, and entered the L^niversity in October, 1859, taking 
a heavy academic ticket. 

He was a diligent student, and made satisfactory progress in his 
studies, though his previous preparation was not sufficient to enable 
him to reach the standard of graduation in any of his schools. At 
the beginning of the next session, he changed his ticket to Moral 
Philosophy, History and Literature, Political Economy, and Junior 
Law, and w'ould probably have graduated on the whole, had he 
remained until the close of the session. 

He greatly delighted in his student life, and was wont to speak 
of his Alma Mater in the most enthusiastic terms. An active 
member of the Washington Society, he has left among his papei's 
a number of very creditable speeches prepared for its debates. As 
a member of the Young Men's Christian Association, he was 
regular in the discharge of its duties, and especially delighted in 
the prayer-meetings. The influences brought to bear upon him 
durino; his second session led him to decide to devote himself to 
the work of the ministry; and he made known his purpose to his 
pastor, who had baptized him a short time before he went to the 
University. He entered most heartily into the feelings of the 
young men of A-^irginia during the early ^lays of the war, and 
was only kept from leaving college to join the army by the most 
earnest persuasion of his friends, who were anxious for him to 
remain until the close of the session. 

About the fii'st of June, however, he declared that he "could 
stand it no longer," and withdrew from college to hasten to the 
front. Pen)aining at home a single day, he hurried to Winches- 
ter, and joined Company D of the famous old 13th Virginia 
Infantry, just as its noble commander (A. P. Hill) was leading 
it out to meet a threatened movement of the enemy from Romney. 

As he marched out that bright June morning — in the same 



432 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. |-j„,y^ 

company with many of his old schoolmates, and in the same file with 
two of his brothers — he said, with gladsome heart, "Now I feel 
contented and happy, for I know that I am in the path of duty." 

He was with Johnston in all of the movements of the Lower 
Valley, by which that great strategist eluded Patterson and hurried 
across the mountains to relieve Beauregard and win tlie great 
battle of First Manassas. 

He participated in the brilliant affairs at Munson's Hill, Lew- 
insville, and other outposts, which showed the metal of which the 
"Old 13th" was made, and won for Colonel " Jeb" Stuart his 
merited Brigadier's wreath ; and in the spring of '62, he went 
with Ewell to join Stonewall Jackson in his famous " Valley 
campaign." 

He went with his command to the Seven Days' battles around 
Richmond, where his younger brother was mortally wounded, and 
thence followed the flag of his heroic regiment to Cedar Run 
Mountain, Second Manassas, Harper's Ferry, Sharpsburg, and 
Fredericksburg. Ever at his post, and prompt to discharge his 
duty amid all those scenes of hardship and danger, he was counted 
one of the best soldiers in a regiment which was composed of as 
noble a body of young men as ever marched under any flag or 
fought for any cause. w 

In the spring of '63, his uncle, Colonel John M. Jones, was 
promoted to the command of a brigade, and offered him a position 
on his personal staff, with the rank of Lieutenant. 

Some time before, F. P. Joxes had been detailed as Quarter- 
master's Sergeant of his regiment, and had given such entire 
satisfaction in the discharge of these important duties that he had 
a fair prospect of promotion in this department. A devoted sister, 
naturally feeling that he had been sufficiently exposed, and that 
one noble boy was enough for the home circle to lose \vhere duty 
did not demand it, wrote to beg him to remain where he was and 
not to accept the proffered staff appointment. He firmly replied, 
"I did not hesitate for a moment what to do. There is no diffi- 
culty in getting men to fill ^bomb-proof positions, and I made up 
my mind some time ago to return to my company as soon as the 
campaign should open. But I can render more efficient service 
on the staff, and have already accepted the appointment." Gen- 
eral John M. Jones had been an old army officer, was at one time 
Professor at West Point, and was known to be one of the most 



1803] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 4.33 



rigid disciplinarians in the service. It was well understood that 
his affection for liis nephew would by no means cause him to over- 
look the slightest delinquency. Yet Lieutenant Jones entered 
so heartily and conscientiously into the discharge of the smallest 
details of his duties, that he soon won from the rigid old West 
Pointer the testimonial, " He is one of the very best staff officers 
in this army." At the same time he won the respect and admira- 
tion of the officers and men of the brigade by his gallant bearing 
on the field, and courteous though rigid discharge of duty in camp 
and on the march. 

He acted with such conspicuous gallantry at the capture of 
Winchester and during the first day's battle of Gettysburg as to 
attract the notice and remark not only of his immediate comman- 
ders, but of the veteran Ewell himself. In the second day's 
battle at Gettysburg, he was shot through the mouth while leading 
a charge on the heights and when within a few feet of the Federal 
wxM'ks, which the men pressed on and occupied. About the same 
time, General Jones, who was rallying another part of the brigade, 
received a severe wound in the leg. They were carried back to 
Winchester in the same ambulance, barely escaping capture by 
Federal cavalry. 

Lieutenant Jones reached home, and lay for several weeks in a 
very critical condition ; but then began to improve, until his friends 
were hopeful of his speedy recovery. He at once grew impatient 
to return to his post. He purchased a new horse, had all of his 
equipments made ready, and was insisting that he should be able 
to join his brigade within ten days, when he was suddenly taken 
with violent hsemorrhages from the lungs, and three days after 
breathed his last. 

He was perfectly conscious that his end was at hand, expressed 
his entire willingness to die if it was God's will that he should 
do so, and said that his hope of salvation w'as in Christ alone. 
The day of his death, a friend read to him tlie 14th chapter of 
John, and at its conclusion he said, with a sweet smile, " I always 
loved those words. That chapter was a great favorite with my 
dear mother, and she used frequently to read it to me wlien I was 
a boy. I know its meaning now. Yes ! and I will soon meet 
her and dear Ed. too, in one of those bright mansions which Jesus 
went to prepare for us." Thus, on the 2d day of September, 1863, 
Francis Pendleton Jones passed from the earth. 
28 



434 THE UNIYEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[July, 



As his comrades along the Rapidan were marching out to a 
"grand review/' this young soldier lay ready for his burial, 
dressed in the gray uniform which in life he had never disgraced, 
and which in death was his most fitting covering. 

His body sleeps in the cemetery of the church of his choice, 
beside the brother who fell at Cold Harbor, and the doting mother 
who was as verily a victim of the war as though shot through the 
heart; but his pure spirit dwells in that heavenly home where 
" war's rude alarms" are never heard and death never enters. In 
reference to the character of this young man, the Captain of his 
old company says that he "was in the highest sense a gentleman, a 
soldier, and a Christian." Generals A. P. Hill, Ewcll, and other 
officers spoke of him in the highest terms. General J. A. Walker 
pays him the following tribute — "Although ray acquaintance 
with F. P. Jones, of Company D, 13th Virginia Infantry, was not 
very intimate, I remember him very well and very distinctly. A 
bright, manly boy who marched forth at the first call to arms, and 
who fought gallantly and bravely on every field; enduring hard- 
ships and priv^ations without a murmur; preserving with spotless 
purity the innocent freshness of a young and guileless heart amid 
the temptations of camp ; and finally laying down his life for the 
good cause. 

"Such is the brief history of this young man, and it affords his 
old Colonel pleasure to bear testimony to his gallantry and good 
conduct as a soldier, and to his pure and spotless character as a 
man." 

His pastor thus writes : — " Of fine talents, gentle manners, and 
affectionate disposition, he became endeared to a wide circle of 
friends, and gave rich promise of usefulness ; while over all his 
natural excellence was shed the mellow light of the religion of 
Jesus." 

Among our " Fallen Alumni " there are more distinguished 
names, but no more devoted son of our Alma Mater, no truer 
patriot, than Francis Pendleton Jones. 



1863 J THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 435 

GEORGE H. GUIGER, 

Captain, and A. D. C. to General Kemper. 

George Henry Guiger, youngest son of George and Susan 
Guiger, was born in Staunton, Virginia, May 28, 1826. His 
family was of German extraction, and came originally from Penn- 
sylvania to Virginia. 

His mother dying a few days after his birth, George was 
bequeathed to his aunt, Mrs. Tapp, who, upon her marriage with 
Peter Merriwether, Esq., of Albemarle, removed to that county to 
reside. In 1844 he became a pupil of ]\Ir. Pike Powers at 
Staunton, and was prepared by that gentleman for entering 
college. In 1846 he matriculated at the University of Virginia, 
where, with a view to the profession of a farmer, he devoted him- 
self chiefly to the study of the physical sciences. After a single 
session there he entered at once upon the duties of life, and under 
the tutelage of one of Virginia's most intelligent farmers, Mr. 
Richard Gambill, of Albemarle, he soon became a very successful 
planter. 

At the first call to arms in 1861, Mr. Guiger entered the army 
as 3d Lieutenant in the "Albemarle Light Horse" — Captain 
Eugene Davis — one of the first companies organized and sent to 
the front from that county. At the reorganization in 1862, he 
was advanced to the position of 1st Lieutenant of the Light 
Horse, but he served as such only for a short time in consequence 
of an appointment on the staif of Brigadier-General James L. 
Kemper as A. D. C, with the rank of Captain. As aide to 
General Kemper he was a faithful and efficient officer, and con- 
tinued to serve in this capacity until he received his death-wound 
at Gettysburg. 

The grand charge of Pickett's Division upon the Federal posi- 
tion on the heights of Gettysburg cannot fail to win admiration 
wherever the great qualities of men are truly appreciated. The 
immortality which it achieved in the annals of history on the 3d 
day of July, 1863, belongs alike to all the Virginians whose 
heroism made it a great deed. The division was composed of 
Kemper's, Garnett's, and Armistead's brigades, and numbered 
less than five thousand men. Ileth's Division, commanded by 
Pettigrew, were to support them, while the brigade of Wilcox 



436 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



should cover their right flank during their advance. The line 
was formed, and " Pickett moved forward across the open plain in 
front of the enemy's works : Kemper's and Garnett's brigades 
were in front, Avith Armistead following close behind. Pettigrew 
was moving on the left, and Wilcox with his troops in columns of 
battalions following on the right. As steadily as if marching on 
parade the columns advanced, and when they reached the Em- 
mitsburg road the Confederate batteries became silent, as they 
could no lono;er fire safelv over the heads of the advancing 
infantry. The enemy greeted their approach with terrific dis- 
charges of grape and canister, before which the Confederates went 
down by scores. Still the line pressed on, winning the admiration 
of even its foes by the magnificence of its advance. Suddenly, 
when the crest was almost reached, the hill blazed Avith the fire of 
the Federal infantry, and Pettigrew's Division, in spite of the 
efforts of its gallant commander to rally it, broke in dismay and 
fled from the field, leaving two thousand prisoners and fifteen 
standards in the hands of the Union army. 

" But the Virginians pressed on, led by their heroic commander, 
with his long hair waving in the breeze, and his sword pointing 
straight on to the enemy. 

" ' Steady they step adown the slope, 
Steady they climb the hill, 
Steady they load, steady they fire, 
Marchiug right onward still — 

" while the iron hail-storm sweeping through their ranks, strewed 
the earth with their dead and dying. There was no wavering 
among them, for they were fighting for the honor of the Old 
Dominion. The gaps in their line were closed up as fast as made, 
and with wild cheers they gained the crest, drove the Federals 
from the works, and amid the gloom and smoke General Lee saw 
through his glass the blue flag of Virginia waving from the crest 
of Cemetery Ridge. 

" The triumph was dearly won, and Avas as brief as it was 
glorious. The enemy rallied on their second line, and poured a 
withering fire into the captured works now held by the Virginians. 
Glancing around to look for his supports, Pickett found that he 
was alone, that Pettigrew's men had fled and left him to his fate. 
His grand charge had been in vain. Every brigade commander, 
and all but one field officer, had fallen, and it was by a miracle 



18C3.] 



THE UI^IVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 437 



only that General Pickett himself had escaped. The enemy were 
rapidly thinning his ranks, and it was vain to attempt to hold the 
works. All that coui-age could do had been done, and it remained 
but to save the remnant of the Division. Reluctantly he gave the 
order to fall back, and the command retired slowly and sullenly 
over the ground it had immortalized. 

"General Wilcox, who had failed to move far enough during 
Pickett's advance, now attempted to carry the heights, but his 
gallant and rash assault was repulsed." 

Thus graphically has McCabe, in his Life of General Lee, de- 
picted the heroism of five thousand men, nearly thirty-five hun- 
dred of whom returned not from the charge. Of the three 
brigade commanders Kemper only survived it, and he was severely 
wounded and made a prisoner. His aide. Captain Guiger, who 
had had his horse shot down under him in the charge, was also mor- 
tally wounded in the retreat and fell into the hands of the enemy. 
He was removed to the hospital at Gettysburg, where, after linger- 
ing in great pain for two weeks, he died July 17, 1863, at the age 
of thirty-seven. 

As a soldier. Captain Guiger was fearless; as an officer, ener- 
getic and systematic. Exacting of others under him the military 
discipline which he himself so strictly adhered to, he at the same 
time won by his impartial bearing their respect and esteem. His 
genial disposition made him a most agreeable companion, and 
whether in camp or at home, he manifested the same hospitable 
spirit. Though not a Christian by profession, his respect for 
Christianity was marked. His last moments were full of peace, 
giving hope to his friends. 

Plis body rests now beneath the sod at his old home in xMbc- 
marle, and beside those he loved in his li'fe and honored in his 
death. 



THOMAS GORDON POLLOCK, 

Adjutant, and Inspector-General, Kemper's Brigade. 

Thomas Gordon Pollock was born in the city of Richmond, 
27th of September, 1838, his father, A. D. Pollock, at that 



43S THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. ^j,,;y 

time being the pastor of the Presbyterian Church on Shockoe 
Hill. His grandfather was Judge Thomas Pollock, of Ligonior 
Valley, in AVestmoreland county, Pennsylvania. His great-grand- 
father, James Pollock, Esq., was an emigrant from Ireland, and a 
son of Dr. Thomas Pollock, Senior, of Coleraine, in the province 
of Ulster. His paternal grandmother was a daughter of Abram 
Hendricks, Esq., of Ligonier Valley, and sister of Governor Wil- 
liam Hendricks, of Indiana, and aunt of Hon. Thomas A. Hen- 
dricks. The family name in France, ages ago, was Henri. In 
Germany (one takes it for granted they were Huguenots) it became 
Heinrich, and in Holland, and then in these States, Hendricks. 

His mother is a daughter of Charles Lee, who, while a young 
man, was Attorney-General of the United States under Washing- 
ton and the elder Adams; and whose elder brother, General 
Henry Lee, became Governor of Virginia, and was the father of 
Robert E. Lee. His maternal grandmother was sister of Judge 
John Scott, of Fauquier, father of Robert E. Scott. These were 
descendants by a maternal line from Professor Thomas Gordon, of 
Aberdeen, an author and a man of note in liis day and country. 

The subject of this sketch was five years old when his j^arents 
removed from Richmond to Leeton Forest estate, near Warrenton, 
in Fauquier county, Virginia. After receiving a preparatory 
education at home, and then in Wilmington, Delaware, he spent a 
year at Yale College, and then four years with distinction in the 
University of Virginia — two in the Academic and two in the 
Law Department. He also read law in the office of his kinsman, 
Robert E. Scott, of Fauquier; and in the beginning of 1860, 
commenced the practice of law in Warrenton. 

In the fall of 1860, young Pollock was induced to remove to 
Shreveport, Louisiana, where, after mastering in three months the 
Louisiana code in the French language, he became the law-partner 
of L. Marks, Esq. (Colonel Marks, of the army, also fallen in 
battle), and was in full practice at once. 

The winter and spring of 1861 brought on the war. The entire 
Shreveport bar became soldiers. Their company was the Shreve- 
port Grays. Thomas Gobdon Pollock, in his twenty-third 
year, having given his attention vigorously to tactics, was their 
principal drill-sergeant. The company was marched in April to 
New Orleans, and thence to Pensacola, and formed part of the 
investing force before Fort Pickens, under General Braxton Bragg. 



18C3.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 439 

In June, '61, the investment of Fort Pickens was abandoned, 
Bradford's Brigade (the Shreveport Grays belonging thereto) was 
ordered to Richmond. At Ricliraond Sergeant Pollook was 
tendered a Captain's commission; and witli the assistance of young 
gentlemen of his acquaintance, raised a company for Wise's Legion, 
and repaired, under orders, to Lewisburg, and thence to Sewell's 
Mountain, the Hawk's Nest, New River, and the Gauley. With 
his James River Rifles, he was at one time ordered into Braxton 
county, alone, on an out-look and recruiting expedition. It is 
saying something that they did not get captured, for the Yankees 
were in force north of the Gauley and Kanawha. The Legion 
Avas eager for a battle, but could not get one — only a few skir- 
mishes in the wilds of the mountain road. Cox's men always con- 
senting to get out of the way. 

Colonel Starke, of Louisiana, commanded the regiment to which 
the James River Rifles belonged. He was a dear, fast friend of 
Captain Pollock, as they had known each other in the South- 
west. At one time a vacancy occurred, and a Major had to be 
appointed. The officers of the regiment united in proposing Cap- 
tain Pollock to the War Department to fill that office, and Col- 
onel Starke became the bearer of the recommendation ; bat before 
Colonel Starke could get to Richmond, the office was filled. 

When autumn winds and frosts and snows began to come, it 
was terrible in the Alleghanies. Pneumonia came in the wake of 
measles, and made the wintry future as gloomy as can be well 
imagined. Military glory, out in that mountain West, Avas a 
"Will o' the wisp." They could not overtake it. There was 
bravery enough, doubtless, in Camp Dogwood and Camp Defiance ; 
but what could it amount to ? 

At length, about 9 o'clock one night, Colonel Starke came from 
brigade headquarters with news. It was an order to move at 
daybreak, and march to Bowling Green, Kentucky, and report 
to General Albert Sidney Johnston. Then good-bye at last to 
West Virginia ! Captain Pollock felt as if he could write a 
critique on the West Virginia policy and management of the war. 
But that was not his business. And what if it had been? He 
could not get paper to write a letter home to his parents — could 
only tear a leaf out of his note-book and send it. 

The brigatlo marched seventy miles to the railroad, on its way 
to Kentucky. There it met a counter-order, commanding it to 



440 • THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[July, 



repair to Charleston, South Carolina, and report to General Robert 
E. Lee. This was a kind providence, no doubt. It kept these 
boys out of that slaughter-pen at Fort Donelson, and gave thera 
the advantage of a bland climate in which to recover from their 
bronchial and pulmonary maladies. Pollock was a nurse among 
his men at Charleston and Pocotaligo, assiduous, skilful, and sym- 
pathizing. And the like of that is nearly all that can be said, or at 
least that need be said, of that winter, and till the spring of 1862. 

While McClellan was before Yorktown, on his peninsular way 
to Richmond, the forces from South Carolina arrived in Virginia. 

At the reorganization of the army, Captain Pollock shared tha 
fate of many of the finest officers in the service ; he was not re- 
elected. But Colonel Starke having been promoted to the command 
of a brigade, invited him to become his aide ; and as the vote of 
his company had left him at liberty to indulge his inclination, he 
accepted the invitation. In this position he went through the 
battles before Richmond, receiving no wound — only a musket ball 
through his clothing, in and out, slightly abrading the skin im- 
mediately over his heart. During two days of those battles, as 
the writer has been told, he was detailed to tlie temporary com- 
mand of a regiment that had lost its field officers. His letter 
home after McClellan's escape is itself a beautiful army report. 

The miasmatic air of the Chickahominy having penetrated his 
system, he was allowed to retire to Charlottesville for medical 
treatment. But the guns of Slaughter's Mountain seeemed to cure 
him. He was not in time for that fight, but was in place for the 
forced march round Pope's army to Manassas. General Starke's 
brigade was in the warmest work of Jackson's corps on Thursday 
and Friday and Saturday of the Second Manassas. The aides 
had to come and go in the heaviest of the leaden storm. Captain 
Pollock's horse was killed under him, and his clothing pierced 
with a musket ball, but his person was uninjured. 

His military conception of the whole idea of that battle and of 
its leading details is expressed with great brevity and admirable 
clearness, illustrated, as all his letters were on such occasions, with 
miniature diagrams of the localities of each decisive collision. 
He was also in the Monday's fight below Centreville, at Ox Hill, 
and accompanied the army into Maryland. 

At Frederick City two Maryland gentlemen offered their ser- 
vices to General Starke as volunteer aides. Thereupon the 



103] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 441 

General offered Captain Pollock a furlough to make a hasty 
visit home. During his absence General Starke was killed at the 
battle of Sharpsburg, and he lost his position thereby. His 
return, liowever, from his furlough to the army was in time to 
enable him to take part in the affair at the Potomac crossing below 
Shcplicrdstown, where the command by courtesy was given him of 
a regiment whose officers no doubt had been killed at Sharpsburg. 

He would then have returned to the ranks, but was prevented 
from doing this by a solicitation from General Lee's staff. Colonel 
Cawley, Quartermaster-General, offered him the position of As- 
sistant, and General Lee himself was kind enough to give him a 
most flattering recommendation to the War Depai'tment for that 
position, to wliich, on giving the requisite bond, he was appointed 
accordingly. This station he occupied from the middle of Sep- 
tember, 1862, till the battle of Fredericksburg, 13th December. 
The opportunity was an admirable one for accurately studying 
at army headquarters the history of the campaign from its 
opening at Yorktown till its close at Sharpsburg. His intimacy 
with the Adjutant-General enabled hira in his letter home to 
speak of tiie campaign as follows : — " The Army of Northern 
Virginia has, upon a careful and certainly a moderate estimate, put 
hors de combat ninety-seven thousand of the enemy (97,000). It 
has captured a hundred and fifty cannon (150), and eighty thou- 
sand small arms (80,000). It has fought seventeen (17) pitched 
battles, suffering no defeat. It has destroyed or captured stores of 
the enemy to be estimated at tens of millions, and it is now ready 
to defend Virginia against the new levies of the invaders with far 
better chances of success than it began the campaign with at Wil- 
liamsburg. And for the present the campaign has ended in the 
retirement of the entire Federal forces into* their works around 
AVashington, defeated and demoralized. These results extend from 
Williamsburg to Sharpsburg. They have been accomplished by a 
single army, unrecruited, greatly inferior to its adversaries in 
numbei's, and wanting in every particular of equipment and fur- 
niture which had been held essential to the success or even to the 
existance of an army in tiie field." 

Through the fall months of September, October, November, 
Ca[)tain Pollock was employed at headquarters, in tiie Pay 
Department. His business intercourse was with officers of rank 
in the same department at Winchester, at Staunton, at Rich- 



442 THE UKIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[July. 



mond. His opportunities were the best for studying subjects of 
administration, as belonging to the interests and relations and 
prospects of the war. Those subjects were serious at that time, 
but as yet full of suggestions of hope as well as of fear. 

He was now a bonded officer of the army, and might have 
availed himself of the comparative safety to person which his 
position would have allowed him during the remainder of the 
war. He was, however, not satisfied. There were others, and 
enough of them he thought, as capable as he for such duties as 
these. He had given himself at the beginning to the war proper, 
and felt that in some capacity or other his duties were in the field. 

General James L. Kemper, who had known Captain Pollock 
intimately before the M'ar, had invited him to a position on liis 
staff. The attraction of former acquaintance, in times so serious, 
was mutual. The invitation was repeated and pressed. Of course 
it was on Captain Pollock's mind during the period of his Quar- 
termaster duties. When the guns of Fredericksburg began boom- 
ing to the battle, he could resist no longer, but repaired to General 
Lee's headquarters, and had himself detailed to General Kemper's 
staif ; and thence to brigade headquarters, where he Avas at once 
inducted as Inspector-General of the brigade. 

General Kemper's brigade was of Longstreet's corps. Its 
position was in rear of the town — the army centre. Through 
the forenoon of the day, the battle was on the Confederate right, 
under Jackson. For miles below the town it occupied the broad 
low grounds of the river. The centre was resting on its arms. 
For hours Captain Pollock sat on his horse, on a tall bluff of 
the heights that commanded the scene. His cool military eye read 
it like a diorama. He could see the effect of the enemy's every 
order to advance, and he could but admire the precision with which 
the order was executed. Then he could see the effect of every 
round from the hedge breast-works, the pause in the advance, the 
stagger, the recoil, and the pell-mell disorder. He could recognize 
the field-officers riding into the confused mass of soldiery, firing 
their pistols and vociferating their orders to re-form the ranks. 
Three times in succession he witnessed, as a mere spectator, this 
exciting alternation of advance and repulse, all unconscious of 
how the forenoon hours were gliding away. At last the repulse 
was decisive. With this result, at about two o'clock, came the 
order for battle at the centre. The remainder of the day was less 



1803.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 443 



photographic in its occurrences, but it ended with victory to the 
defenders of the bleeding South. Many a noble Southern soldier 
saw his last of earth on that day. Captain Pollock's horse was 
wounded under him, slightly, in the knee ; he himself was 
unharmed. 

Captain Pollock was now in the active field-service again. 
Longstreet's corps (including Kemper's brigade) was during the 
winter ordered to Suffolk, and then, in the spring, to Kiugston, 
in North Carolina. But there was no battle — only watching and 
skirmishing all the time. 

Longstreet's corps was unhurt by Chancellors ville. It was 
not there. It shared not in its glory. It only heard the guns 
from Taylorsville, and then hastened on to the invasion of Penn- 
sylvania that followed. This was Captain Pollock's last long 
march, and Gettysburg was his last battle. The brigade passed 
almost within sight of his home. But war knows no indulsrent 
Wenti mentalities. June weather was relaxing, and the long march 
was exhausting. But what of that ? 

The 28th of June was the Sabbath, and Longstreet was in camp 
near Chambersburg. Captain Pollock obtained a furlough, and 
dressed himself and rode into town and went to church. This 
was the habit of his life. One hopes it was a pure Gospel that 
was preached on that day and in that church, and by some pure- 
hearted messenger of the Lord Jesus. But of this we know 
nothing. 

Tliat whole section of southern counties of Pennsylvania was 
alive with scenes of strategy and war preparation. Two of the 
most gigantic armies that ever trod the western side of the earth 
were manoeuvring for a bloody trial of strength. The Southern 
soldiers were confident, and calm in their confidence. They 
believed in General Lee. Captain Pollock said in his letter 
three days before his death, that their confidence in their leader 
was like his idea of faith. General Lee was a soldier, it may be, 
of the sublimest grade, an honor to his nation, whether that nation 
be '' The Confederate States " or " The United States." But God 
at last does as it pleaseth Him, among armies or peoples, in earth 
or heaven. And He giveth no account of His matters. 

In the battle of Gettysburg, Longstreet's corps was the reserve. 
Theirs, then, was the heavy work of the 3d of July. The charge 
of Pickett's division has been already referred to. Before it was 



444 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



made, General Kemper, at the left wing of his brigade, conferred 
with his staff, and assigned to each member his dnty. Last of 
all, he conferred with Captain Pollock alone, entrusting to him 
certain duties at the other end of the brigade line. General 
Kemper himself, immediately afterwards, was shot down, and 
Captain Pollock had gallopped along the line to attend to the 
duty assigned him. Tlie charge was in full career of its advance. 
The fire from the battery in front and flank was terrible. The 
brigade line, at some point, staggered, when Captain Pollock's 
words were heard for the last time: — "Boys, I trust you will all 
behave like Southern soldiers." His farther lot in the bloody 
affair is in great obscurity. Captain Lettellier, charging with his 
company, remembers him as he rode along the line. The men all 
noticed him, for they were all fond of him. In ten minutes the 
word passed back along the advancing line, " Captain Pollock 
is killed." A soldier of the 7th Virginia (Edward Yeager, of 
Culpeper) saw him fall from his horse. • He fell within ten steps 
of Yeager, and not as a wounded man falls, but like a dead man — 
clear of his horse. The commotion of the charge was at its utmost ; 
and the distance across the plain to the fortifications was yet con- 
siderable; the mortality was appalling, and there was no time then 
to inquire or look after the fallen. Tiie charge entered the first 
line of breastworks, but were not sustained, and could not hold 
them. The withdrawal was in utter confusion, in which no local- 
ities could be visited, and no killed or wounded identified and 
brought off. Captain Pollock's remains were not recognized or 
heard from at all. His faithful body-servant, Richard, since 
dead, was on the field at the time, determined to see the worst of 
it, anxious to follow his master into the enemy's hospital, if it 
might be so ; determined, at any rate and at all risk, to know 
what his fate was. But he was ordered back by an officer who 
seemed amazed at his temerity. Dick and Tom had been children 
together. They had never been really separated till now. Poor 
Dick returned out of the hail-storm of bullets, with his mas- 
ter's wounded horse, to a silent and desolate headquarters (for 
General Kemper and his entire staff were dead or wounded on 
the field). He was noticed, on the return march into Virginia, 
often in tears, riding the unwounded horse and leading the 
wounded one ; both of which he brought home, in about a year, 
to the family, with whom he continued, mourning his companion 
and master, to the day of his own death. 



iscs.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 445 

WILLIAM FAUNTLEROY COCKE, 

Lieuteuant, Company E, 18th Virginia Infantry. 

The name of Edmund Randolph is a historic one, so intimately 
linked with the early fortunes of the ancient Colony and Com- 
mouNvealth of Virginia, that the life of the one is in a measure 
the history of the other. He who was the friend and adviser of 
Washington, the framer in part of the Constitution of the 
United States, Secretary of State under the first President, 
Governor of Virginia in that chivalrous period when birth, 
statesmanship, elegant accomplishments, and " the grand old name 
of gentleman," were the necessary and required concomitants of 
holding the honorable office, must have been a man who would 
naturally impress some of his marked characteristics on those who 
most immediately surrounded him, especially the members of his 
own family. 

Among his children none perhaps inherited so predominantly 
her father's mental qualities as his daughter Edmonia Madison, 
who became early in life the wife of Thomas L. Preston, Esq. 
Left a widow after a few years of rare domestic blessedness, Mrs. 
Preston exercised a controlling influence in every sphere in which 
she moved, by the strength and purity and singleness of her lofty 
religious life, by her wide, all-embracing sympathies, and her 
self-sacrificing philanthropy, A volume might be profitably filled 
with the good deeds and holy living of this saintly woman. Her 
moulding hand had no little to do, as we may well imagine, in 
giving shape and direction to the character of the beloved grand- 
son who grew up under her eye, and whose .name heads the present 
sketch. 

William Fauntleroy Cocke, the eldest child of William 
A. and Elizabeth Randolph Cocke, was born at the ancestral 
family seat of " Oakland," in Cumberland county, Virginia, 
August 26th, 1836. 

For over one hundred years the paternal estate, which had been 
on'o-inally deeded as a grant by George the Second to a remote an- 
cestor of the name, had descended from father to son, and the 
primeval oaks of his home had never overshadowed any but his 
own race and blood. Sitting as he did at the feet of his noble 
grandmother, and listening to her reminiscences of the men among 



446 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



whom she had grown up (to name whom would be to call over 
the bede-roU of Virginia's proudest worthies), the boy could not 
fail to have his mind stirred with lofty enthusiasms and his heart 
fired with memories of those days when " there were giants in the 
land." It is to trace these influences that these early surroundings 
are referred to. It would be difficult to conceive of more elements 
entering into any childhood that could add to its freedom and 
happiness than combined to render William Cocke's everything 
that was desirable. His father was a high-minded, courteous gen- 
tleman, belonging to that extinct type of which but few specimens 
remain to us. He was a graduate of the College of William and 
Mary, Avith ample means and leisure; a stickler for all the imme- 
morial manners and customs of the ancient noblesse of the Old 
Dominion ; gentle, j udicious, tolerant; allowing the widest verge 
to his children consistent Avith that strict and perfect courtesy 
which was the law of his household. His mother inheriting the 
distinctive attributes that have given character to the families 
Avhose blood meets in her veins, brought tlie stimulus of her fer- 
vent nature, her eager enthusiasm, her vivid sensibilities, her im- 
measurable tenderness, to brighten and animate and give piquancy 
to the childhood of her boys. 

The Oakland plantation overflowed with old family servants 
whose grandsires and great-grandsires had never known any other 
masters than the ancestors of the present proprietors ; so that as 
complete a realization of the feudal character of the demesne of the 
ancient regime Avas to be found there as anywhere Avithin the 
borders of the old CommouAvealth. It Avas beautifub to see the 
gray-headed patriarch who had been the nurse or playfellow of 
the father or grandfather of the subject of our sketch, looking up 
to the young master Avith such love, veneration, and trust as never- 
more Avill meet the eyes of this or any other generation. 

William Avas reared and received all his elementary education 
at home, under the best tutors his careful parents could procure. 
He thus escaped the dangers and trials incident to the public 
school, and retained in consequence that freshness and purity and 
unaffected simplicity Avhich characterized him throughout life. 
This home education, it must be premised, did not induce any 
compromise or abatement of the hearty, strong, ingenuous out- 
goings of the most thorough boy-nature. No English lad ever 
grew up in the fuller exercise of all the athletic sports and occu- 



1803] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 447 

pations and accomplishments of the country gentleman. He was 
the boldest of riders and the best of shots. The rifle was the 
plaything of his childhood ; horses, dogs, guns, and fishing-rods, 
divided his hours with Virgil and Xenophon, Euclid and quad- 
ratics. The fine effect of this free, untranimeled liberty of range 
and occupation, was manifested in his thoroughly developed 
physique. He was declared to be the strongest man among his 
five hundred compeers at the University of Virginia, and proofs 
are adduced of his endurance and feats of streno-th that border 
upon the marvellous. 

At fifteen he was sufficiently advanced in his studies to enter 
Washington College as a student; consequently he went to Lexing- 
ton, Virginia, in 1852, and for the four following years was an 
inmate in the family of his uncle. Colonel J. T. L. Preston. All 
the amiable, generous, high-minded qualities which stamped the 
character of the boy under the eye of his parents and the hand of 
his tutors at Oakland, developed into fuller flower when he was 
transferred to the wider and more maturing sphere of college life. 
The tenderest })artiality could scarcely overstep the truth in de- 
lineating his daily walk and bearing as it presented itself to the 
observation of those around him. That exquisite consider ateness 
which gave emphasis to even his more trivial actions — that habit 
which St. Paul commends of " esteeming others better than " him- 
self — that utter self-forgetfulness so unpeculiar to the young — 
that deference and docility — each and all combined to make up a 
character in which it would have been hard for the most envious 
to pick a flaw. Not a child even in his uncle's family could recall 
a harsh or unccurteous expression ; not a servant ever heard a 
rude word from William's lips. No college companion could 
jjoint to any act of injustice or impropriety or ordinary thought- 
lessness calculated in the slightest degree to wound, during his 
four years of residence. No Professor had ever occasion to chide 
for any failure in duty. Absolute conscientiousness seemed to be 
the rule of all his conduct. And withal, he was just as light- 
hearted, genial, responsive, and free from the affectation of prema- 
ture goodness, as the veriest madcap that ever trod college halls. 

He had a native love for books ; and acquisition was so easy to 
him that no amount or variety of studies seemed to burden him. 
His specialty, however, was for classic literature ; and he here laid 
the foundation of that fine and thorough scholarship which was 
the distinguishing feature of his after-years. 



4-18 THE U]S'IVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[July. 



Just at the close of his academic course, A\4illiam had the mis- 
fortune to lose his excellent father. Indeed, he •was summoned 
from Coniraenceraent — on which occasion one of the gold medals 
was awarded hi.ra by the Faculty of the College for distinguished 
attainment — by the tidings of his father's illness and death. He 
returned at once to Oakland; and from that time, as the oldest son 
(though only nineteen), a weight of duties and responsibilities 
devolved upon him such as few of his years are called on to 
sustain. 

In October, 1855, William Cocke became a student at the 
University of Virginia, applying himself with his usual assiduity 
to his favorite studies, and with such success that in June, 1857, 
he graduated in four departments. After his graduation he went 
back to Oakland, and gave himself conscientiously and steadily to 
his duties on liis plantation, involving as they did an immense 
amount of personal oversight and executive skill. 

Yet while regulating and guiding wisely and judiciously his 
realm of domestic dependents — overlooking aged and infirm 
servants, prescribing for and kindly visiting the sick in their 
"quarters," seeing that women and children had all necessary 
wants supplied, directing overseers, and helping to dispense the 
most prodigal hospitality to hosts of summer guests — his con- 
trolling tastes, nevertheless, could not be repressed. Like the 
sunken Arethusa, they wrought for themselves an outlet in their 
own island of rest, into which the impertinences of "murk and 
moil " might not thrust themselves. He never mounted his horse 
for his daily rounds without some classic author in his coat-pocket, 
and his well-worn copy of Horace attested his innate love for the 
owner of the Sabine farm, whose agricultural notes, written on 
the borders of the Digentia, had certainly a charm for him above 
and beyond any modern farming journals. 

Many amusing incidents are remembered of this growing ab- 
sorption in Roman and Greek studies. So utter was his absence 
of pedantry that it was rather a matter to call up a flush over his 
clear face when, by accident, the darling volumes were discovered 
in his pocket, or some mischievous eye, "peering over his shoul- 
der," found him wrapped into abstraction over the Medea instead 
of the last novel of Ivingsley or Thackeray. It was pure love of 
literature for its own sake that made him oblivious, many a time, 
of the fiict that his man of business was waiting witliout, or his 



1S03.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 433 



rigid disciplinarians in the service. It was well understood that 
his aiFection for liis nephew would by no means cause him to over- 
look the slightest delinquency. Yet Lieutenant Joxes entered 
so heartily and conscientiously into the discharge of tiie smallest 
details of his duties, that he soon Avon from the rigid old West 
Pointer the testimonial, " He is one of the very best staff officers 
in this arnay." At the same time he won the respect and admira- 
tion of the officers and men of the brigade by his gallant bearing 
on the field, and courteous though rigid discharge of duty in camp 
and on the march. 

He acted with such conspicuous gallantry at the capture of 
Winchester and during the first day's battle of Gettysburg as to 
attract the notice and remark not only of his immediate comman- 
ders, but of the veteran Ewell himself. In the second day's 
battle at Gettysburg, he was shot through the mouth while leading 
a charge on the heights and when within a few feet of the Federal 
works, which the men pressed on and occupied. About the same 
time. General Jones, who was rallying another part of the brigade, 
received a severe wound in the leg. They were carried back to 
Winchester in the same ambulance, barely escaping capture by 
Federal cavalry. 

Lieutenant Joxes reached home, and lay for several weeks in a 
very critical condition ; but then began to improve, until his friends 
were hopeful of his speedy recovery. He at once grew impatient 
to return to his post. He purchased a new horse, had all of his 
equipments made ready, and was insisting that he should be able 
to join his brigade within ten days, when he was suddenly taken 
with violent haemorrhages from the lungs, and tliree days after 
breathed his last. 

He was perfectly conscious that his end was at hand, expressed 
his entire willingness to die if it was God's will that he should 
do so, and said that his hope of salvation was in Christ alone. 
The day of liis death, a friend read to him the 14th chapter of 
John, and at its conclusion he said, with a sweet smile, " I always 
loved those words. That chapter was a great favorite with my 
dear mother, and she used frequently to read it to me M'hen I was 
a boy. I know its meaning now. Yes ! and I will soon meet 
her and dear Ed. too, in one of tliose bright mansions whicli Jesus 
went to prepare for us." Thus, on the 2(1 day of September, 1863, 
Francis Pexdlkton Jones passed from the earth. 
28 



434 TITE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



As his comrades along the Rapidan were* marcliing out to a 
"grand review," this young soldier lay ready for his burial, 
dressed in the gray uniform which in life he had never disgraced, 
and which in death was his most fitting covering. 

His body sleeps in the cemetery of the church of his choice, 
beside the brother who fell at Cold Harbor, and the doting mother 
who was as verily a victim of the war as though shot through the 
heart; but his pure spirit dwells in that heavenly home where 
" war's rude alarms " are never heard and death never enters. In 
reference to the character of this young man, the Captain of his 
old company says that he "was in the highest sense a gentleman, a 
soldier, and a Christian." Generals A. P. Hill, Ewoll, and other 
officers spoke of him in the highest terms. General J. A. Walker 
pays him the following tribute — "Although my acquaintance 
with F. P. Jones, of Company D, 13th Virginia Infantry, was not 
very intimate, I remember him very well and very distinctly. A 
bright, manly boy who marched forth at the first call to arms, and 
who fought gallantly and bravely on every field ; enduring hard- 
ships and privations without a murmur; preserving with spotJess 
purity the innocent freshness of a young and guileless heart amid 
the temptations of camp ; and finally laying down his life for the 
good cause. 

"Such is the brief history of this young man, and it affords his 
old Colonel pleasure to bear testimony to his gallantry and good 
conduct as a soldier, and to his pure and spotless character as a 
man." 

His pastor thus writes : — " Of fine talents, gentle manners, and 
affectionate disposition, he became endeared to a wide circle of 
friends, and gave rich promise of usefulness ; wliile over all his 
natural excellence was shed the mellow light of the religion of 
Jesus." 

Among our " Fallen Alumni " there are more distinguished 
names, but no more devoted son of our Alma Mater, no truer 
patriot, than Feancis Pendleton Jones. 



18631 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 435 

GEORGE H. GUIGER, 

Captain, and A. D. C. to General Kemper. 

George Henry Guiger, youngest son of George and Susan 
Guiger, was born in Staunton, Virginia, May 28, 1826. His 
family was of German extraction, and came originally from Penn- 
sylvania to Virginia. 

His mother dying a few days after his birth, George was 
bequeathed to his aunt, Mrs. Tapp, who, upon her marriage with 
Peter Merriwether, Esq., of Albemarle, removed to that county to 
reside. In 1844 he became a pupil of Mr. Pike Powers at 
Staunton, and was prepared by that gentleman for entering 
college. In 1846 he matriculated at the University of Virginia, 
where, with a view to the profession of a farmer, he devoted him- 
self chiefly to the study of the physical sciences. After a single 
session there he entered at once upon the duties of life, and under 
the tutelage of one of Virginia's most intelligent farmers, Mr. 
Richard Gambill, of Albemarle, he soon became a very successful 
planter. 

At the first call to arms in 1861, Mr. Guiger entered the army 
as 3d Lieutenant in the "Albemarle Light Horse" — Captain 
Eugene Davis — one of the first companies organized and sent to 
the front from that county. At the reorganization in 1862, he 
was advanced to the position of 1st Lieutenant of the Light 
Horse, but he served as such only for a short time in consequence 
of an appointment on the staff of Brigadier-General James L. 
Kemper as A. D. C., with the rank of Captain. As aide to 
General Kemper he was a faithful and efficient officer, and con- 
tinued to serve in this capacity until he received his death-wound 
at Gettysburg. 

The grand charge of Pickett's Division upon the Federal posi- 
tion on the heights of Gettysburg cannot fail to win admiration 
wherever the great qualities of men are truly appreciated. The 
immortality which it achieved in the annals of history on the 3d 
day of July, 1863, belongs alike to all the Virginians whose 
heroism made it a great deed. The division was composed of 
Kemj)cr's, Garnett's, and Armistead's brigades, and numbered 
less than five thousand men. Heth's Division, commanded by 
Pettigrew, were to support them, while the brigade of Wilcox 



436 THE UXIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[jiiiy. 



should cover their right flank during their advance. The line 
was formed, and " Pickett moved forward across the open plain in 
front of the enemy's works : Kemper's and Garnett's brigades 
Avere in front, with Armistead following close behind. Pettigrew 
Avas moving on the left, and Wilcox Avitli his troops in columns of 
battalions following on the right. As steadily as if marching on 
parade the columns advanced, and M^hen they reached the Em- 
mitsburg road the Confederate batteries became silent, as they 
could no longer fire safely over the heads of the advancing 
infantry. The enemy greeted their approach with terrific dis- 
charges of grape and canister, before which the Confederates Ment 
down by scores. Still the line pressed on, winning the admiration 
of even its foes by the magnificence of its advance. Suddenly, 
when the crest was almost reached, the hill blazed with the fire of 
the Federal infantry, and Pettigrew's Division, in spite of the 
efforts of its gallant commander to rally it, broke in dismay and 
fled from the field, leaving two thousand prisoners and fifteen 
standards in the hands of the Union army. 

" But the A^irginians pressed on, led by their heroic commander, 
with his long hair waving in the breeze, and his sword pointing 
straight on to the enemy. 

" ' Steady they step adown the slope, 
Steady they climb the hill, 
Steady they load, steady they fire, 
Marching right onward still — 

" while the iron hail-storm sweeping through their ranks, strewed 
the earth with their dead and dying. There was no wavering 
among them, for they Avere fighting for the honor of the Old 
Dominion. The gaps in their line were closed up as fast as made, 
and with wild cheers they gained the crest, drove the Federals 
from the works, and amid the gloom and smoke General Lee saw 
through his glass the blue flag of Virginia waving from the crest 
of Cemetery Ridge. 

" The triumph was dearly won, and was as brief as it was 
glorious. The enemy rallied on their second line, and poured a 
withering fire into the captured works now held by the Virginians. 
Glancing around to look for his supports, Pickett found that he 
was alone, that Pettigrew's men had fled and left him to his fate. 
His grand charge had been in vain. Every brigade commander, 
and all but one field officer, had fallen, and it was by a miracle 



1863.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 437 



only that General Pickett himself had escaped. The enemy were 
rapidly thinning his ranks, and it was vain to attempt to hold tlie 
works. All that courage could do had been done, and it remained 
but to save the remnant of the Division. Reluctantly he gave the 
order to fall back, and the command retired slowly and sullenly 
over the ground it had immortalized. 

" General Wilcox, who had failed to move far enough during 
Pickett's advance, now attempted to carry the heights, but his 
gallant and rash assault was repulsed." 

Thus graphically has McCabe, in his Life of General Lee, de- 
picted the heroism of five thousand men, nearly thirty-five hun- 
dred of whom returned not from the charge. Of the three 
brigade commanders Kemper only survived it, and he Avas severely 
■wounded and made a prisoner. His aide. Captain Guiger, who 
had had his horse shot down under him in the charge, was also mor- 
tally wounded in the retreat and fell into the hands of the enemy. 
He was removed to the hospital at Gettysburg, where, after linger- 
ing in great pain for two weeks, he died July 17, 1863, at the age 
of thirty-seven. 

As a soldier, Captain Gukjer was fearless; as an officer, ener- 
getic and systematic. Exacting of others under him the military 
discipline which he himself so strictly adhered to, he at the same 
time won by his impartial bearing their respect and esteem. His 
genial disposition made him a most agreeable companion, and 
whether in camj) or at home, he manifested the same hospitable 
spirit. Though not a Christian by profession, his respect for 
Christianity was marked. His last moments were full of peace, 
giving hope to his friends. 

His body rests now beneath the sod at his old home in Albe- 
marle, and beside those he loved in his life and honored in liis 
death. 



THOMAS GORDON POLLOCK, 

Adjutant, and Inspector-General, Kemper's Brigade. 

Thomas Gordon Pollock was born in the city of Richmond, 
27th of September, 1838, his father, A. D. Pollock, at that 



43S THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. ^j,,;^ 

time being the pastor of the Presbyterian Church on Shockoe 
Hill. His grandfather was Judge Thomas Pollock, of Ligonier 
Valley, in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. His great-grand- 
father, James Pollock, Esq., -was an emigrant from Ireland, and a 
son of Dr. Thomas Pollock, Senior, of Coleraine, in the province 
of Ulster. His paternal grandmother was a daughter of Abram 
Hendricks, Esq., of Ligonier Valley, and sister of Governor Wil- 
liam Hendricks, of Indiana, and aunt of Hon. Thomas A. Hen- 
dricks. The family name in France, ages ago, was Henri. In 
Germany (one takes it for granted they were Huguenots) it became 
Heinrich, and in Holland, and then in these States, Hendricks. 

His mother is a daughter of Charles Lee, who, while a young 
man, was Attorney-General of the United States under Washing- 
ton and the elder Adams; and whose elder brother. General 
Henry Lee, became Governor of Virginia, and was the father of 
Robert E. Lee. His maternal grandmother was si-ster of Judge 
John Scott, of Fauquier, father of Robert E. Scott. These were 
descendants by a maternal line from Professor Thomas Gordon, of 
Aberdeen, an author and a man of note in his day and country. 

The subject of this sketch was five years old when his parents 
removed from Richmond to Leeton Forest estate, near Warrcnton, 
in Fauquier county, Virginia. After receiving a preparatory 
education at home, and then in Wilmington, Delaware, he spent a 
year at Yale College, and then four years with distinction in the 
University of Virginia — two in the Academic and two in the 
Law Department. He also read law in the office of his kinsman, 
Robert E, Scott, of Fauquier; and in the beginning of 1860, 
commenced the practice of law in Warrenton. 

In the fall of 1860, young Pollock was induced to remove to 
Shreve2>ort, Louisiana, where, after mastering in three months the 
Louisiana code in the French language, he became the law-partner 
of L. Marks, Esq. (Colonel Mark.s, of the army, also fallen in 
battle), and was in full practice at once. 

The winter and spring of 1861 brought on the war. The entire 
Shreveport bar became soldiers. Their company was the Shreve- 
port Grays. Thomas Gordon Pollock, in his twenty-third 
year, having given his attention vigorously to tactics, was their 
principal drill-sergeant. The company was marched in April to 
New Orleans, and thence to Pensacola, and formed pai"t of the 
investing force before Fort Pickens, under General Braxton Bragg. 



1863.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 439 



III June, '61, the investment of Fort Pickens was abandoned. 
Bradford's Brigade (the Shreveport Grays belonging thereto) was 
ordered to Richmond. At Richmond Sergeant Pollock was 
tendered a Captain's o-ommission ; and with tlie assistance of young 
gentlemen of his acquaintance, raised a company for Wise's Legion, 
and repaired, under orders, to Lewisburg, and thence to Sewell's 
INIountain, the Hawk's Nest, New River, and the Gauley. With 
his James River Rifles, he was at one time ordered into Braxton 
county, alone, on an out-look and recruiting expedition. It is 
saying something that they did not get captured, for the Yankees 
Avere in force north of the Gauley and Kanawha. The Legion 
was eager for a battle, but could not get one — only a few skir- 
mishes in the wilds of the mountain road. Cox's men always con- 
senting to get out of the way. . 

Colonel Starke, of Louisiana, commanded the regiment to which 
the James River Rifles belonged. He was a dear, fast friend of 
Captain Pollock, as they had known each other in the South- 
west. At one time a vacancy occurred, and a Major had to be 
appointed. The officers of the regiment united in proposing Cap- 
tain Pollock to the War Department to fill that office, and Col- 
onel Starke became the bearer of the recommendation ; but before 
Colonel Starke could get to Richmond, the office was filled. 

When autumn winds and frosts and snows began to come, it 
was terrible in the Alleghanies. Pneumonia came in the wake of 
measles, and made the wintry future as gloomy as can be well 
imagined. INIilitary glory, out in that mountain West, was a 
" Will o' the wisp." They could not overtake it. Tiiere was 
bravery enough, doubtless, in Camp Dogwood and Camp Defiance ; 
but what could it amount to ? 

At length, about 9 o'clock one night, Co]onel Starke came from 
brigade headquarters with news. It was an order to move at 
daybreak, and march to Bowling Green, Kentucky, and report 
to General Albert Sidney Johnston. Then good-bye at last to 
West Virginia ! Captain Pollock felt as if he could write a 
critique on the West Virginia policy and management of tiie war. 
But that was not his business. And what if it had been? He 
could not get paper to write a letter home to his parents — could 
only tear a leaf out of his note-book and send it. 

The brigade marched seventy miles to the railroad, on its way 
to Kentucky. There it met a counter-order, commanding it to 



440 THE UNTVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



repair to Charleston, South Carolina, and report to General Robert 
E. Lee. This was a kind providence, no doabt. It kept these 
boys out of that slaughter-pen at Fort Donelson, and gave thera 
the advantao;e of a bland climate in which to recover from their 
bronchial and pulmonary maladies. Pollock was a nurse among 
his men at Charleston and Pocotaligo, assiduous, skilful, and sym- 
pathizing. And the like of that is nearly all that can be said, or at 
least that need be said, of that winter, and till the spring of 1862. 

While McClcllan was before Yorktown, on his peninsular way 
to Richmond, the forces from South Carolina arrived in Virginia. 

At the reorganization of the army. Captain Pollock shared tha 
fate of many of the finest officers in the service; he was not re- 
elected. But Colonel Starke having been promoted to the command 
of a brigade, invited him to become his aide; and as the vote of 
his company had left him at liberty to indulge his inclination, he 
accepted the invitation. In this position he went through the 
battles before Richmond, receiving no wound — only a musket ball 
through his clothing, in and out, slightly abrading the skin im- 
mediately over his heart. During two days of those battles, as 
the writer has been told, he was detailed to tiie temporary com- 
mand of a regiment that had lost its field officers. His letter 
home after McClellan's escape is itself a beautiful array report. 

The miasmatic air of the Chickahominy having penetrated his 
system, he was allowed to retire to Charlottesville for medical 
treatment. But the guns of Slaughter's Mountain seeemed to cure 
him. He was not in time for that fight, but was in place for the 
forced march round Pope's army to Manassas. General Starke's 
brigade was in the warmest work of Jackson's corps on Thursday 
and Friday and Saturday of the Second Manassas. The aides 
had to come and go in the heaviest of the leaden storm. Captain 
Pollock's horse was killed under him, and his clothing pierced 
with a musket ball, but his person was uninjured. 

His military conception of the whole idea of that battle and of 
its leading details is expressed with great brevity and admirable 
clearness, illustrated, as all his letters were on such occasions, with 
miniature diagrams of the localities of each decisive collision. 
He was also in the Monday's fight below Centreville, at Ox Hill, 
and accompanied the army into Maryland. 

At Frederick City two Maryland gentlemen offered their ser- 
vices to General Starke as volunteer aides. Thereupon the 



ros] THE UNIVERSITY MEAIOEIAL. 441 

General offered Captain Pollock a furlougli to make a hasty 
visit home. Dnring his absence General Starke was killed at the 
battle of Sharpsbnrg, and he lost his position thereby. His 
return, however, from his furlough to the army was in time to 
enable him to take part in the affair at the Potomac crossing below 
Shepherdstown, where the command by courtesy was given him of 
a regiment whose officers no doubt had been killed at Sharpsburg. 

He would then have returned to the ranks, but was prevented 
from doing this by a solicitation from General Lee's staff. Colonel 
Cawley, Quartermaster-General, offered him the position of As- 
sistant, and General Lee himself was kind enough to give him a 
most flattering recommendation to the War Department for that 
position, to which, on giving the requisite bond, he was appointed 
accordingly. This station he occupied from the middle of Sep- 
tember, 1862, till the battle of Fredericksburg, 13th December. 
The opportunity was an admirable one for accurately studying 
at army headquarters the history of the campaign from its 
opening at Yorktown till its close at Sharpsburg. His intimacy 
with the Adjutant-General enabled him in his letter home to 
speak of the campaign as follows : — " The Array of Northern 
A'^irginia has, upon a careful and certainly a moderate estimate, put 
hors de combat ninety-seven thousand of the enemy (97,000). It 
has captured a hundred and fifty cannon (150), and eighty thou- 
sand small arms (80,000). It has fought seventeen (17) pitched 
battles, suffering no defeat. It has destroyed or captured stores of 
the enemy to be estimated at tens of millions, and it is now ready 
to defend Virginia against the new levies of the invaders with far 
better chances of success than it began the campaign with at Wil- 
liamsburg. And for the present the campaign has ended in the 
retirement of the entire Federal forces into, their works around 
Washington, defeated and demoralized. These results extend from 
Williamsburg to Sharpsburg. They have been accomplished by a 
single army, unrecruited, greatly inferior to its adversaries in 
numbers, and Avanting in every particular of equipment and fur- 
niture which had been held essential to the success or even to the 
existance of an army in the field." 

Tlirough the fall months of September, October, November, 
Captain Pollock was employed at headquarters, in the Pay 
Department. His business intercourse was with officers of rank 
in the same department at Winchester, at Staunton, at Kick- 



442 THE UNIVEESITY MEAIOEIAL. 



[July. 



mond. His opportunities were the best for studying subjects of 
administration, as belonging to the interests and relations and 
prospects of the Avar. Those subjects Avere serious at that time, 
but as yet full of suggestions of hope as well as of fear. 

He was now a bonded officer of the army, and might have 
availed himself of the comparative safety to person which his 
position would have allowed him during the remainder of the 
war. He was, however, not satisfied. There were others, and 
enough of them he thought, as capable as he for such duties as 
these. He had given himself at the beginning to the war proper, 
and felt that in some capacity or other his duties were in the field. 

General James L. Kemper, who had known Captain Pollock 
intimately before the war, had invited liim to a position on his 
staff. The attraction of former acquaintance, in times so serious, 
was mutual. The invitation was repeated and pressed. Of course 
it was on Captain Pollock's mind during the period of his Quar- 
termaster duties. When the guns of Fredericksburg began boom- 
ing to the battle, he could resist no longer, but repaired to General 
Lee's headquarters, and had himself detailed to General Kemper's 
staff; and thence to brigade headquarters, where he Avas at once 
inducted as Inspector-General of the brigade. 

General Kemper's brigade was of Longstreet's coi'ps. Its 
position AA^as in rear of the town — the array centre. Through 
the forenoon of the day, the battle Avas on the Confederate right, 
under Jackson. For miles below the town it occupied the broad 
low grounds of the river. The centre Avas resting on its arms. 
For hours Captain Pollock sat on his horse, on a tall bluff of 
the heights that commanded tlie scene. His cool military eye read 
it like a diorama. He could see the effect of the eiiemy's every 
order to adA'^ance, and he could but admire the precision AA'ith Avhich 
the order Avas executed. Then he could see the effect of every 
round from the hedge breast-Avorks, the pause in the advance, the 
stagger, the recoil, and the pell-mell disorder. He could recognize 
the field-officers riding into the confused mass of soldiery, firing 
their pistols and vociferating their orders to re-f )rm the ranks. 
Three times in succession he witnessed, as a mere spectator, this 
exciting alternation of advance and repulse, all unconscious of 
how the forenoon hours were gliding away. At last the repulse 
was decisive. With this result, at about two o'clock, came the 
order for battle at the centre. The remainder of the day Avas less 



18G3.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 443 



pliotograpliic in its occurrences, but it ended with victory to the 
defenders of the bleeding South, Many a noble Soutlicrn soldier 
saw his last of earth on that day. Captain Pollock's horse was 
wounded under him, slightly, in the knee ; he himself was 
unharmed. 

Captain Pollock was now in the active field-service again. 
Longstreet's corps (including Kemper's brigade) was during the 
winter ordered to Suffolk, and then, in the spring, to Kingston, 
in North Carolina. But there was no battle — only watching and 
skirmishing all the time. 

Longstreet's corps was unhurt by Chancellorsville. It was 
not there. It shared not in its glory. It only heard the guns 
from Taylorsville, and then hastened on to the invasion of Penn- 
sylvania that f(:)llowed. This was Captain Pollock's last long 
march, and Gettysburg was his last battle. The brigade passed 
almost within sight of his home. But war knows no indulgent 
sentimentalities. June weather was relaxing, and the long march 
was exhausting. But what of that ? 

The 28th of June was the Sabbath, and Longstreet was in camp 
near Chambersburg. Captain Pollock obtained a furlough, and 
dressed himself and rode into town and went to church. This 
was the habit of his life. One hopes it was a pure Gospel that 
was preached on that day and in that church, and by some pure- 
hearted messenger of the Lord Jesus. But of this we know 
nothing. 

That whole section of southern counties of Pennsylvania was 
alive with scenes of strategy and war preparation. Two of the 
most gigantic armies that ever trod the western side of the earth 
were manoeuvring for a bloody trial of strength. The Soutliern 
soldiers were confident, and calm in their confidence. They 
believed in General Lee. Captain Pollock said in his letter 
three days before his death, that their confidence in their leader 
was like his idea of faith. General Lee was a soldier, it may be, 
of the sublimest grade, an honor to his nation, whether that nation 
be " The Confederate States " or " The United States." But God 
at last does as it pleaseth Ilim, among armies or peoples, in earth 
or heaven. And He giveth no account of His matters. 

In the battle of Gettysburg, Longstreet's corps was the reserve. 
Theirs, then, was the heavy work of the 3d of July. The charge 
of Pickett's division has been already referred to. Before it was 



444 THE UJS^IVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



made, General Kemper, at the left wing of his brigade, conferred 
with his staff, and assigned to each member his duty. Last of 
all, he conferred with Captain Pollock alone, entrusting to him 
certain duties at the other end of the brigade line. General 
Kemper himself, immediately afterwards, was shot down, and 
Captain Pollock had gal lopped along the line to attend to the 
duty assigned him. The charge was in full career of its advance. 
The fire from the battery in front and flank was terrible. The 
brigade line, at some point, staggered, when Captain Pollock's 
words were heard for the last time: — "Boys, I trust you will all 
behave like Southern soldiers." His farther lot in the bloody 
affair is in great obscurity. Captain Lettellier, charging with his 
company, remembers him as he rode along the line. The men all 
noticed him, for they were all fond of him. In ten minutes the 
word passed back along the advancing line, " Captain Pollock 
is killed." A soldier of the 7th Virginia (Edward Yeager, of 
Culpcper) saw him fall from his horse. • He fell within ten steps 
of Yeager, and not as a wounded man falls, but like a dead man — 
clear of his horse. The commotion of tiie charge was at its utmost ; 
and the distance across the plain to the fortifications was yet con- 
siderable; the mortality was api)alling, and there was no time then 
to inquire or look after the fallen. The charge entered the first 
line of breastworks, but were not sustained, and could not hold 
them. The withdrawal was in utter confusion, in which no local- 
ities could be visited, and no killed or wounded identified and 
brought off. Captain Pollock's remains were not recognized or 
heard from at all. His faithful body-servant, Richard, since 
dead, was on the field at the time, determined to see the worst of 
it, anxious to follow his master into the enemy's hospital, if it 
might be so ; determined, at any rate and at all risk, to know 
what his fate was. But he was ordered back by an officer who 
seemed amazed at his temerity. Dick and Tom had been children 
together. They had never been really separated till now. Poor 
Dick returned out of the hail-storm of bullets, with his mas- 
ter's wounded horse, to a silent and desolate headquarters (for 
General Kemper and his entire staff were dead or wounded on 
the field). He was noticed, on the return march into Virginia, 
often in tears, riding the unwounded horse and leading the 
wounded one ; both of which he brought home, in about a year, 
to the family, with whom he continued, mourning his companion 
and master, to the day of his own death. 



iSiiS.] THE U^'IVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 445 

WILLIAM FAUNTLEROY COCKE, 

Lieutenant, Company E, ISth Virginia Infantry. 

The name of Edmund Randolph is a historic one, so intimately 
linked with the early fortunes of the ancient Colony and Com- 
monwealth of Virginia, that the life of the one is in a measure 
the history of the other. He who was the friend and adviser of 
Washington, the framer in part of the Constitution of the 
United States, Secretary of State under the first President, 
Governor of Virginia in that chivalrous period when birth, 
statesmanship, elegant accomplishments, and " the grand old name 
of gentleman," were the necessary and required concomitants of 
holding the honorable office, must have been a man who would 
naturally impress some of his marked characteristics on those who 
most immediately surrounded him, especially the members of his 
own family. 

Among his children none perhaps inherited so predominantly 
her father's mental qualities as his daughter Edmonia Madison, 
who became early in life the wife of Thomas L. Preston, E?q. 
Left a widow after a few years of rare domestic blessedness, Mrs. 
Preston exercised a controlling influence in every sphere in which 
she moved, by the strength and purity and singleness of her lofty 
religious life, by her wide, all-embracing sympathies, and her 
self-sacrificing philanthropy. A volume might be profitably filled 
with the good deeds and holy living of this saintly woman. Her 
moulding hand had no little to do, as we may well imagine, in 
giving shape and direction to the character of the beloved grand- 
son who grew up under her eye, and whose name heads the present 
sketch. 

William Fauxtleroy Cocke, the eldest child of William 
A. and Elizabeth Randolph Cocke, was born at the ancestral 
family seat of " Oakland," in Cumberland county, Virginia, 
August 2Gth, 1836. 

For over one hundred years the paternal estate, which had been 
originally deeded as a grant by George the Second to a remote an- 
cestor of the name, had descended from father to son, and the 
primeval oaks of his home had never overshadowed any but his 
own race and blood. Sitting as he did at the feet of his noble 
grandmother, and listening to her reminiscences of the men among 



446 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



whom she had grown up (to name whom would be to call over 
the bedc'-roU of Virginia's proudest worthies), the boy could not 
fail to have his mind stirred with lofty enthusiasms and his heart 
fired with memories of those days Avhen " there were giants in the 
land." It is to trace these influences that these early surroundings 
are referred to. It would be difficult to conceive of more elements 
entering into any childhood that could add to its freedom and 
happiness than combined to render William Cocke's everything 
that was desirable. His father was a high-minded, courteous gen- 
tleman, belonging to that extinct type of which but few specimens 
remain to us. He was a graduate of the College of William and 
Mary, with ample means and leisure; a stickler for all the imme- 
morial manners and customs of the ancient noblesse of the Old 
Dominion; gentle, judicious, tolerant ; allowing the widest verge 
to his children consistent with that strict and j^erfect courtesy 
which was the law of his household. His mother inheriting the 
distinctive attributes that have given character to the families 
whose blood meets in her veins, brought the stimulus of her fer- 
vent nature, her eager enthusiasm, her vivid sensibilities, her im- 
measurable tenderness, to brighten and animate and give piquancy 
to the childhood of her boys. 

The Oakland plantation overflowed with old family servants 
whose grandsires and great-grandsires had never known any other 
masters than the ancestors of the present proprietors ; so that as 
complete a realization of the feudal character of the demesne of the 
ancient regime Avas to be found there as anywhere within the 
borders of the old Commonwealth. It was beautiful to see the 
gray-headed patriarch who had been the nurse or playfellow of 
the fother or grandfather of the subject of our sketch, looking up 
to the young master with such love, veneration, and trust as never- 
more will meet the eyes of this or any other generation. 

AYiLLiAM was reared and received all his elementary education 
at home, under the best tutors his careful parents could procure. 
He thus escaped the dangers and trials incident to the public 
school, and retained in consequence that freshness and purity and 
unaffected simplicity which characterized him throughout life. 
This home education, it must be premised, did not induce any 
compromise or abatement of the hearty, strong, ingenuous out- 
goings of the most thorough boy-nature. No English lad ever 
grew up in the fuller exercise of all the athletic sports and occu- 



1863] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 447 

pations and accomplishments of the country gentleman. He was 
the boldest of riders and the best of shots. The rifle was the 
plaything of his childhood; horses, dogs, guns, and fishing-rods, 
divided his hours with Virgil and Xenophon, Euclid and quad- 
ratics. The fine effect of tiiis free, untrammeled liberty of range 
and occupation, was manifested in his thoroughly developed 
physique. He Avas declared to be the strongest man among his 
five hundred compeers at the University of Virginia, and proofs 
are adduced of his endurance and feats of streno;th that border 
upon the marvellous. 

At fifteen lie was sufficiently advanced in his studies to enter 
Washington College as a student; consequently he went to Lexing- 
ton^ Virginia, in 1852, and for the four following years was an 
inmate in the family of his uncle, Colonel J. T. L. Preston. All 
the amiable, generous, high-minded qualities which stamped the 
character of the boy under the eye of his parents and the hand of 
his tutors at Oakland, developed into fuller flower when he was 
transferred to the wider and more maturing sphere of college life. 
The tenderest partiality could scarcely overstep the truth in de-. 
lineating his daily walk and bearing as it presented itself to the 
observation of those around him. That exquisite consider ateness 
which gave emphasis to even his more trivial actions — that habit 
which St. Paul commends of " esteeming others better than " him- 
self — that utter self-forgetfulness so unpeculi^r to the young — • 
that deference and docility — each and all combined to make up a 
character in which it would have been hard for the most envious 
to pick a flaw. Not a child even in his uncle's family could recall 
a harsh or unccurteous expression ; not a servant ever heard a 
rude word from William's lips. No college companion could 
2)oint to any act of injustice or impropriety or ordinary thought- 
lessness calculated in the slightest degree to wound, during his 
four years of residence. No Professor had ever occasion to chide 
for any failure in duty. Absolute conscientiousness seemed to be 
the rule of all his conduct. And withal, he was just as light- 
hearted, genial, responsive, and free from the affectation of prema- 
ture goodness, as the veriest madcap that ever trod college halls. 

He had a native love for books; and acquisition Avas so easy to 
him that no amount or variety of studies seemed to burden him. 
His specialty, however, was for classic literature ; and he here laid 
tlie foundation of that fine and thorough scholarship which was 
the distinguisluMg feature of his after-years. 



448 THE UKIVEESITY MEMOETAL. 



[July, 



Just at the close of his academic course, William had the mis- 
fortune to lose his excellent father. Indeed, he was summoned 
from Commencement — on which occasion one of the gold medals 
was awarded hi.m by the Faculty of the College for distinguished 
attainment — by the tidings of his father's illness and death. He 
returned at once to Oakland; and from that time, as the oldest son 
(though only nineteen), a weight of duties and responsibilities 
devolved ujion him such as few of his years are called on to 
sustain. 

In October, 1855, William Cocke became a student at the 
University of Virginia, applying himself with his usual assiduity 
to his favorite studies, and with such success that in June, 1857, 
he graduated in four departments. After his graduation he went 
back to Oakland, and gave himself conscientiously and steadily to 
his duties on his plantation, involving as they did an immense 
amount of personal oversight and executive skill. 

Yet while regulating and guiding wisely and judiciously his 
realm of domestic dependents — overlooking aged and infirm 
servants, prescribing for and kindly visiting the sick in their 
"quarters," seeing that women and children had all necessary 
wants supplied, directing overseers, and helping to dispense the 
most prodigal hospitality to hosts of summer guests — his con- 
trolling tastes, nevertheless, could not be repressed. Like the 
sunken Arethusa, they wrought for themselves an outlet in their 
own island of rest, into which the impertinences of " murk and 
moil " might not thrust themselves. He never mounted his horse 
for his daily rounds without some classic author in his coat-pocket, 
and his well-worn copy of Horace attested his innate love for the 
owner of the Sabine farm, whose agricultural notes, written on 
the borders of the Digentia, had certainly a charm for him above 
and beyond any modern farming journals. 

Many amusing incidents are remembered of this growing ab- 
sorption in Roman and Greek studies. So utter was his absence 
of pedantry that it was rather a matter to call up a flush over his 
clear face when, by accident, the darling volumes were discovered 
in his pocket, or some mischievous eye, "peering over his shoul- 
der," found him wrapped into abstraction over the Medea instead 
of the last novel of Kingsley or Thackeray. It was pure love of 
literature for its own sake that made him oblivious, many a time, 
of the fact that his man of business was waiting witliout, or his 



ISGC] THE UNTVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 449 

foreman delaying for orders, or his blacksmith resting on his anvil. 
The seductions of the Odyssey could overpower the claims of tobacco 
plantations, the wit of Aristophanes render him deaf to " Uncle 
Ralph's " talk about the crops. 

It must not be inferred from this, however, that his ruling pas- 
sion made him neglectful of necessary business ; this would not 
be in accordance with the abnegation claimed for him, nor would 
it be true. Through no selfish persistence in his chosen pursuits 
did he allow the interests of the general establishment to flag. 
When duty demanded tiiat he should be abroad directing his 
schemes of improvement, he closed his books — it might be with a 
sigh, but he did close them. 

So far as is known, he had no professional career in view ; 
hence, in furnishing his mind thus richly, self-development and 
self-culture were for the j)resent his proposed ends. In this 
rapid, pressing, ungraceful age of ours, such a picture is so seldom 
met with, that we find ourselves lingering over it, perhaps too 
admiringly. 

William Cocke's life had been prescribed to him in a special 
manner by the circumstances in which he found himself as tlie 
owner of a large patrimony, the master of a very extensive com- 
munity of slaves, and the head of his father's house. He had no 
choice but to accept the burden which such possessions imposed. 
Cloistered study; life withdrawn amid the seclusion of books, 
a])art from the jars and roughnesses of daily contact with irrespon- 
sive natures; the delight of "mousing at choice among antique 
libraries, and finding the oldest volume there more attractive and 
suggestive than the newest of the new" — this would probably 
have been the bent of his inclinations ; but he did not thus indulge 
himself. 

It may be noted here that the one fault of his character — if 
indeed we dare designate what is so rare by any other name than a 
virtue — was the want of a proper assertion of his own powers. 
He asked nothing for himself; he always stepped back and allowed 
who would to press by him or push him into the shade, seem- 
ingly unconscious of what was due to such high intellectual 
qualities as he possessed. The world is ready enough to take us 
at our own estimate without the trouble of fartiier inquiry. Had 
William Cocke lived to work out his life to its final and crown- 
ing result, distinction would have been thrust on him — if it came, 
29 



450 THE UA'IVEESITY MEMORIAL. [j,.:^., 

as it deserved to come ; for never would his perfectly disin- 
terested nature have thought of seeking it for himself. 

He possessed a marvellous charm of temper that " keyed him 
on so high a pitch " that few could thoroughly comprehend the 
variety and sweetness of it. He was one who would have been 
selected among a thousand as holding within himself the essence 
of all comfortableness. In this world of worry, Nvhat quality can 
be half so attractive ? 

Yet underlying this quiet self-consciousness, this passionless 
serenity, this inviolate gentleness, was an intellect keen, strong, 
comprehensive ; a will resolute and steadfast, and where prin- 
ciple was involved, inexorable in its quick decisions ; a culture 
refined, scholarly, profound ; emotions, how Avarm, pure, and per- 
vading, only those could have a hint of who were near enough 
to be allowed now and then a glimpse into the inner heart. 

At the breaking out of the war, our young scholar did not 
hesitate a moment as to his course of procedure. Although no 
politician, his mind was clear as to the claims of his native State 
ujjon him ; and while it required a stout will to resist the demands 
of his burdensome home duties and cares, the celerity of his action 
proves that he did not stop to weigh consequences. He became a 
private in Company E, 18th Virginia Infantry, under Captain 
Carter Harrison, April 23d, 1861. 

Here, as elsewhere, he asked literally nothing for himself. He 
might have had office for the seeking, as became his social posi- 
tion ; but he was content to shoulder his musket and march 
abreast with men of the humblest grade of life. Landed proprietor 
or village blacksmith, it made no difference when all eyes were 
intent on one sole purpose — the defence of the soil that gave them 
birth. 

William Cocke's uncomplaining endurance of fatigue, work, 
and hardships of every kind, was beyond all praise. AVere it not 
that thousands of other brave men bore similar sufferings in the 
same spirit, we might be tempted to enlarge on this point. His 
life at Oakland had not been, one would suppose, the best school 
of discipline for a common soldier; yet never did a stauncher 
shoulder carry musket, never did unconscious courage demean 
itself more heroically on a battle-field, never were the trials of 
camp-life accepted and suffered with more unflinching acquiescence. 
He was one of the most untiring workers in the trenches ; and he 



let) 1.1 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 4ol 



who had perhaps never handled a spade in his life, could distance 
the men about him who had lived by its use. 

His hopeful cheerfulness never forsook him, even amidst the 
utmost disaster or the most imminent perils. Amenity, cour.tesy, 
self-forgetfulness, were still the law of his life, as they had been 
in his own fair home. Sir Philip Sidney, when almost iu sight 
of Zutphen, where he laid down his chivalrous life for love of 
England and her Protestant cause, could write to Walsingham : — 
" I beseech you, let not my troubles trouble you. I had before 
cast my account of danger, want, and trial ; and before God, Sir, 
it is trew in mine hearte, the love of the cause doth so far over- 
balance them all, that with God's grace they shall never make me 
weary of my resolution. . . I think a wyse and constant man ought 
not to greeve whyle he doth plaie, as a man may say, his own part 
truly. . . . For me, I cannot promise of my own source, because 
I know there is a eyer power that must upholde me, or else I shall 
fall." The spirit of our young friend's letters was in nowise 
different or less devoted than that of Sir Philip. 

And speaking of letters reminds us to say, that in this branch 
of accomplishments William Cocke was preeminent. His airy 
and brilliant play of humor nowhere made itself so conspicuous 
as in his correspondence. Indeed, he was accustomed to charac- 
terize his conversation as " mental stuttering," so much readier 
was his pen than his tongue to do his mind's bidding. 

It pleased him better that his youngest brother, who was a 
Lieutenant in the same company, should in time become the 
Captain of that company than that the honor should have been 
conferred upon himself. At the battle of Williamsburg, May 5th, 
1862, his regiment was ordered to retire, but owing to the heavy 
firing he did not hear the order and kept on, until looking around 
him he foundhimself surrounded by strange faces. He discovered 
afterwards that he was with the 11th Alabama ; but he remained 
nevertheless among his unexpected comrades, and fought with his 
usual intrepidity as long as the regiment remained on the field. 
He had the rim of his hat shot away in this battle, but it was only 
after the fight was over, on his attempting to draw his hat over 
his face, that he was made aware how near he had come to losing 
his head. It was on this occasion he marched all the way from 
Williamsburg to Richmond to rejoin his regiment barefooted — 
his boots having been torn from his feet iu the terrible experiences 



452 THE UXIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[July, 



below Richmond. He described his suiferings from this cause as 
the most excruciating lie had been called to endure, inasmuch as 
there was not left upon the soles of his feet "a nail-breadth of 
skin" by the time he reached the end of his march, when he had 
to be sent at once to a hospital. 

In the second battle of IManassas, fought August 29th, 1862, 
AViLLTAM Cocke was wounded in the knee, and for several 
months was compelled to lie inactive at home. By November, 
however, he had so far recovered as to lay aside his crutch, and he 
made in that month a visit to the family of his uncle in Lexing- 
ton, prior to his intended return to his post. During the interval 
of his absence he had been elected Lieutenant of his company. 

He found a heavy shadow hanging over the household in Lex- 
ington. Already on that fatal field where he had received his 
own wound, his young cousin, William C. Preston, had laid down 
his life; and on the spot where he fell, was filling a soldier's 
grave. And now a younger brother who was preparing to take 
the fallen one's place in the ranks, was lying smitten down by 
mortal disease. Never can it be forgotten how the gallant soldier, 
still halting from his wound, insisted on lying night after night on 
a pallet beside the sick couch of the dying Randolph Preston, 
ever present and ever ready to help ; and when the sad blow fell, 
to sustain by his silent sympathy the hearts doubly desolated. 

It was during this visit that he made a public profession of re- 
ligion. Not that then and there he became a Christian, for such 
a life as his had long been, could only be modelled upon that of 
the Great Exemplar. 

The purest and most unworldly morality could never produce 
such fruits as those by which he was known. His brother, 
Captain Edmund R. Cocke, says in a letter now lying before the 
■writer of these outlines, "William always carried in his coat- 
pocket, in camp and on battle-field, a small Greek Testament, in 
which he was seen constantly reading." 

With a hallowed memory (upon which it is almost sacrilegious 
for us to touch) his mother recalls the tender scene of his kneeling 
beside her at the altar-rails of the little parish church of St. 
James, to which the family at Oakland belonged, and with her 
partaking for the first and last time of the holy communion. 

The following letter from Captain Harrison to Captain Cocke, 
bears eloquent testimony to the worth and beauty of the character 
we are attempting to portray : — 



is(.;: ] 



THE UNIYEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



" My intimate acquaintance with your uoble brother ^YILLIAM 
dates from the commencement of the war, when I had the honor 
to command the company in which he served ; for it was an honor 
even to belong to that glorious army in which such men enlisted 
as privates. 

" His modest and retiring disposition rendered it necessary to 
know him long and well to projjerly appreciate his great worth, 
that rare union of literary and cultivated tastes with sturdy man- 
liness M'hich so remarkably characterized him. Over and above 
all this were the Christian faith and sense of duty wi)ich rounded 
and completed his character. These were daily illustrated in the 
cheerfulness and alacrity with which he discharged any duty 
assigned him by his military superior. I remember that soon 
after going into the service, he M^as detailed with a large party on 
fatigue duty, involving severe labor — a service at that time pecu- 
liarly obnoxious to men unused to labor, for the most part, and 
strangers to the requirements of military rule. The officer in 
command of the party, entirely unacquainted with your brother, 
remarked that ' If all the men worked like that man ' — pointing 
to him — 'the task would be quickly finished/ What an ex- 
ample to the rank and file of our volunteer army ! A man reared 
in wealth and luxury setting himself to work with such will and 
alacrity as to make himself conspicuous among his fellow-soldiers 
and call forth such commendation, doing ' with all his might what- 
soever his hand found to do' at the call of duty. 

" At the battle of Manassas, while charging the enemy, he be- 
thought him that his ammunition was expended ; and stopping 
over a dead soldier, he gathered from his Ijelt a handful of cart- 
ridges and transferred them to his own box with such quickness 
and dexterity as not to be thrown out of his place in the ranks — 
a remarkable instance of coolness in a young volunteer for the 
^ first time under fire. When I related this to Colonel Ilobert 
Preston of the 28th, 'God bless the boy,' said the gallant old 
soldier. 

" You were not present on the night when we contemplated a 
surprise of the enemy's outposts near Washington. Our enter- 
prise was frustrated by the disaffection, insubordination, and 
cowardice of some of our officers. When the temper of the men 
had become such that it was thought necessary to call for volun- 
teers, comj)any by company, and to take only such as were willing 



454 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



LJuiy, 



to go ; at the call, three men from Company E stepped to my side 
without hesitation or a moment's deliberation ; one of the three was 
William Cocke. Any one who knew him would have counted 
on him at such a time ; he was always where duty called. 

" On the march, bivouac, outpost, fatigue duty, anywhere, he 
was cheerful, uncomplaining, patient, and obedient, never seeking 
or caring for promotion, but only solicitous to do well his part 
* in that station to which it pleased God to call him/ He was a 
noble pattern and example of the Christian soldier and gentleman; 
and so I ever found him to the close. It was not my fortune to 
be with him when his well-earned promotion came unsought, nor 
to be present on that day when his bright career was ended. But 
I am persuaded that as he lived, so he died ; that the faith which 
had sustained him in life did not fail him in death. Your friend 
and mine. Sergeant Jackson (now gone to his rest), a short time 
before his death, speaking of your brother in most touching and 
affecting terms, told me he was always associated in his memory 
Avith the little Greek Testament he loved so well and read so con- 
stantly. Could a comrade well give a nobler eulogy? Who 
would not say, 'Let me be thus remembered'?" 

When Lieutenant CocKE passed from under the bare branches 
of his ancestral oaks, that bleak January morning, 1863, it was 
to see them no more forever. Although still lame from liis wound, 
he persisted in returning to his post : this furlough, which the 
nursing of his wounded leg necessitated, was his last. In all the 
rapid, eager, deadly struggles of the next six months, he was a 
constant participator; marching, fighting, watching, he bore on 
with the same quenchless endurance and heroic fortitude, even to 
the end. 

As he passed with Lee's array through Frederick City, on its 
march to Pennsylvania, a young female friend — who in the happy 
days gone by had been accustomed for months together to share, 
with other joyous summer guests, the hospitalities of Lieutenant 
Cocke's beautiful home — stood upon the j)avement's edge, and 
with streaming tears of wonder and pride, gazed on him incredu- 
lously as he presented himself before her. It was not strange, 
that in the bronzed, roughened, hungry soldier, she could with 
difficulty find a trace of the gay companion of many a well- 
remembered gala-day of old. Alas for the ravages of death ! Both 
have passed away, to meet in that beautiful city whose streets are 
'' like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." 



1863.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 455 



The hurry and confusion, the fearul rapidity with which event 
trod upon the heels of event, in those after crowded weeks, prevent 
us from knowing much of tlie closing scenes of this fair and well 
wrought life, which did not quite reach twenty-eight years. 

On the fatal morning of July 3d, 1863, William Cocke stood 
facing the enemy's guns before Gettysburg, ready for that terrible 
onset wliich was to send a wail of agony through the entire land. 
" Never," writes Captain Cocke, " do I remember to have seen 
William more calm, quiet or collected, than he was on that 
morning, as I had my last siglit of him standing within seventy 
or eiglity feet of the enemy's breastworks." He had looked death 
too often and too steadily in the eye to quail now ; and we may 
feel well assured that if it had been announced to him then and 
there that the next volley was to be the messenger to summon 
him from the ghastly awfulness of the battle-field into the pure 
presence of God, not a muscle of that genial and pleasant coun- 
tenance would have quivered, not a pulsation of that steadfast 
heart quickened. He knew " in whom he had believed." We 
feel sure that the " little Greek Testament " was turned to for 
strength and solace in that hour of fearful crisis. " Let not your 
heart be troubled;" "where I am, there shall my servant be." 
" Whosoever believeth in Me shall never die." And thus com- 
forted and fortified, would he not hide in his bosom again the 
dear and well-used volume, and with a supreme faith, uncon- 
scious of fear, step gloriously forth to his doom ? 

All we can know is, that when the deadly onset was made, Lieu- 
tenant Cocke rushed upon the batteries : clouds of siuoke veiled 
the carnage that followed ; cannon belched their fire, the earth 
shook with the tread of contending armies, the grass grew sodden 
with blood ; and when the rage of battle ceased, and the broken 
bands fell back exhausted, William Cocke was not among them. 
No one had seen him fall, none could give any tidings of him. 
All who had closely surrounded him had doubtless sunk beneath 
the same charge ; and the silence that came back upon the souls 
of those who questioned of his fate, was the only answer. Right 
under the muzzles of the murderous guns, he had heard the Voice 
which said, " Come up hither." 

Captain Cocke was slightly wounded by a ball passing between 
his ear and his head, which grooved a course for itself in tlie flesh ; 
so narrow was the dividing-line between life and death ! Yet he 



456 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. " fju;y^ 

was instant in laborious search for the beloved, missing broLiicr : 
but it was all in vain ; " he saw him no more." 

We pass over the record of the six torturing months of sus- 
pense, in which it remained a question whether he might not be a 
helpless and wounded captive in some distant fort. We dwell not 
on the deferred hope that sickened and at length died utterly away j 
while the hearts that had nursed and clung to it, and kept it alive 
so long, sank down into silent and acquiescent sorrow. " None 
knoweth the place of his sepulchre until this day." 

Thus meagrely and with scant materials at hand, has the writer 

of this sketch endeavored to outline the character of William 

Fauntleroy Cocke, who, it will be allowed, belonged to that 

class of men 

*' Who, living, are but dimly guessed, 
But show their length in graves." 



WILLIAM THOMPSON HASKELL, 

Captain. Compariy A, 1st South Carolina Volunteers. 

In a volume of " Memoirs of men educated at the University 
of Virginia who lost their lives during the war," the omission of 
few names would leave a more inexcusable gap than that of the 
name of William T. Haskell. No name is invested with a 
more fragrant odor in the classic halls in which he was educated, 
and no more heroic blood consecrated the cause to which he gave 
his life. He was a man whose character and career were too 
elevated and noble to be surrendered, without an effort to preserve 
them, to the oblivion of the tomb. 

He was one of those who inherited the qualities which he illus- 
trated in his brief career. His Christian name, William Thomp- 
son, was that of his paternal great-grandfather, who is honorably 
mentioned in the following resolution of the First Congress of the 
United States : — 

"Philadelphia, July 20th, 1776. 
" In Congress, 

''Resolved, That the thanks of the United States of America be 
given to Major-General Lee, Colonel William Moultrie, aud Col- 



1863] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 457 



onel William Thompson, and the officers and soldiers under their 
commands, who, on the 18th of June last, repulsed with so much 
valor the attack which was made on the State of South Carolina 
by the fleet and army of His Britannic Majesty." 

His mother was a daughter of the Hon. Langdon Cheves, one 
of the most prominent of the many distinguished statesmen of the 
past generation. In mind and heart, as in culture and accom- 
plishments, the worthy daughter of such a sire, she trained up, in 
all that adds nobility to noble natures, eight sons, of whom seven 
served with distinguished gallantry, and two consecrated with their 
life-blood the cause which they believed to be that of justice, 
patriotism, and honor. 

William Thompson, the third son of his parents, was born 
on his father's plantation, in Abbeville District, South Carolina, 
December 12th, 1837. With his brothers, he was educated by 
private tutors ; and never left his home — except once, on a visit 
to his grandfather, on Savannah river, in 1853 — until in October, 
1854, he went to Charleston to complete hivS preparation for the 
South Carolina College. 

One would judge from his own subsequent representations and 
penitent recollections of his childhood, that it gave but little indi- 
cation of what he was afterwards to be ; except perhaps to one 
whose true maternal insight could penetrate the disguise of a rather 
unpromising exterior. He was the " disagreeable boy " of the 
family, irritating to his elders, overbearing to his juniors; whose 
hand was against every man, and every man's hand against him ; 
whose indomitable and domineering spirit no superior strength 
could subdue, and whose dogged tenacity of opinion or of purpose 
no superior wisdom or skill in argument could shake. He was, 
besides, comparatively speaking, the "dull boy" of the family, 
whose fate it was, not infrequently, to be put to shame by the su- 
perior quickness and diligence of those younger than himself. 

All this is perfectly intelligible to those who, knowing him 
afterwards, knew not whether most to admire the rare gifts and 
powers of his mind or the great qualities of his character. 
Neither his mind nor his character was of the kind to be. moulded 
by others. What he was to be he was to become more by a pro- 
cess of self-develojjment than by the action upon him of forces 
from without. And self-development is always slow ; too slow 



458 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL.' 



[July, 



for the world which, in this quick age, finds it hard to wait on a 
man who is obliged to have thoughts of his own before he can 
talk, or principles of his own before he can act. i 

A very few months after beginning his studies in Charleston, he 
was seized by a dangerous and protracted illness, by which he lost 
nearly a year, and from which he had scarcely fully recovered, 
when, in October, 1856, he entered the University of Virginia. 
In consequence of the peculiar character of his mind, as well as 
from his long separation from books and his want of accurate 
training and preparation, he never became what would be called a 
successful student at the University. His slow and hesitating ut- 
terance was at first as mucii against him in conversation and in the 
Literary Society as his want of accurate scholarship and scientific 
training in the lecture room. His first effort in the University 
Magazine proved conclusively that he had never before essayed the 
powers of his pen. 

And yet, with all these disadvantages of nature and prepara- 
tion, no one was at all intimately associated with him without very 
soon feeling that there were within him undeveloped pqwers of 
mind and of character which, sooner or later, would make their 
mark. One by one the more intelligent students with whom he 
was thrown, recognized and acknowledged this. And, to their 
honor be it said, the Professors were scarcely slower to discover in 
the young man who stammered in his recitations and failed in 
his examinations, not only a nature of singular elevation and 
nobility, but intellectual gifts which, though not yet ready to find 
utterance, were of rare promise for the future. He spent four 
years at the University, and how much during that period he had 
overcome the natural and other disadvantages under which he 
labored, is evidenced by two facts. In the Jefferson Society, num- 
bering at that time nearly one hundred and fifty members, he was 
at the close of his last year one of the three prominent candidates 
for the gold medal awarded annually to the best debater. In the 
University Magazine his articles attracted more and more atte».tion 
for vigor and originality of thought, elevation of sentiment, and 
especially the most appreciative and discriminating power of 
literary criticism. A review of Bulwer's What Will He Do With 
It? received honorable mention, and was one of two or three 
articles which competed for the gold medal awarded by a commit- 
tee of the Professors to the best article of the year. But these 



1863.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 459 



things are as nothing in comparison with that ineffable impression 
which the man himself has left upon all those who knew him 
during these years of his University life. One who visits, even 
now,Charlottesvilleandits vicinity, will find the name of William 
Haskell enshrined in the memory of many who delight to recall 
the peculiar attractiveness of his mind and manner, which no one 
who came in contact with him can ever foro;et. There was an inde- 
scribable blending of ease and dignity, a modest self-respect, an 
unpretending self-possession and self-reliance, an "unconscious 
consciousness " of strength and worth, which it is as easy to recall 
to those who knew him as it is difficult to describe to those who 
did not. A College contemporary, who knew him only there, 
writes of him, " Haskell's character was one of the most beautiful 
I ever knew;" a judgment in few words, which is here confi- 
dently recorded as the unanimous sentiment of all who were as- 
sociated with him at this period of his life. 

In July, 1860, having received certificates of profi{3iency in 
Political Economy and Anglo-Saxon, and diplomas in the Latin 
aud Spanish languages and the schools of Moral Philosophy and 
History and Literature ; and having served the Society of which 
he was a member both as President and Editor of the Magazine, 
he bade farewell to the University, which he had learned to love 
as a second home, as only that dear old Alma Mater can be loved 
by her sons. He spent that summer at home and in rambling 
among the mountains with his brothers ; and in October took up 
his law-books. On the 20th December following. South Carolina 
seceded from the Federal Union, and a few weeks after, January 
2d, 1861, he and his younger brother went to Charleston and 
entered the military service of the State. " From that moment," 
says one whose language will appear extravagant to the world, but 
scarcely so to those who knew him best — "from that moment his life 
was that of the most perfect Ciiristian hero that I have ever con- 
ceived." There was that in the heroic struggle of the next four 
years which was calculated to develop the matchless heroism of his 
nature — the heroism alike of action and of endurance, M'hich 
shines even more brightly in the midnight of disaster than in the 
noontide of victory and glory. For six months he served as a 
private in Colonel Gregg's 1st Regiment of Volunteers, on the 
sands of Sullivan's and Morris Islands, a.nd afterwards in Virginia. 
Tlie comrades who stood by his side in the ranks, in even those 



460 THE UJs^IVEESIlT MEMOEIAL. rjyjy^ 

early and comparatively inglorious clays of the war, recall still, in 
the language of one of thera, " with what cheerfulness and alacrity, 
nay with what enthusiasm, he endured every privation and per- 
formed every duty. We all admired him as the model of every 
manly virtue, and were endeared to him by his kind, generous 
and self-sacrificing nature. We respected him, too, for his vig- 
orous, active intellect, enlarged by study and liberalized by culture; 
proposing to himself the highest models of excellence, and pre- 
paring by a proper development and exercise of all his powers to 
discharge his duty fully to God and his country." 

The regiment was enlisted for only six months, and on the 1st 
of July was disbanded. But the soldierly eye of Colonel Gregg 
had long since singled him out, and he at once commissioned him to 
raise a company for the new regiment which he proceeded to form 
under the same name — 1st South Carolina Volunteers. The re-or- 
ganization was completed in August. Captain Haskell found 
great difficulty in making np his comjiany in the short time allowed 
him, an almost stranger as he was in his own State after the four 
years' sojourn in Virginia. Colonel Gregg waited to the very last 
moment, and at last received him with barely the minimum number 
constituting a company — and that, perhaps, of tlie most hetero- 
geneous and unpromising material to be found at the time in our 
army. And yet this company became in his hands as conspicuous 
as any in the service for disci])line and efficiency. Indeed, he hud 
that rarest but truest quality of a good officer, that he ever distin- 
guished himself even more by what he made his men do than by wliat 
he did himself. Regardless of personal distinction and promotion, 
his eye was upon tliem, not upon himself; upon the work to be 
done, not upon the glory to be achieved. His principle M'as, ever 
to sacrifice himself to the service, never the service to himself. 
And so he was the same in whatever capacity he served, witli or 
without the recognition of his services or the ap[)roval of his 
superiors; whether he was honorably mentioned in the official 
report, as by the unanimous verdict of his brother officers he gen- 
erally deserved to be, or, as sometimes happened, his name was 
unaccountably omitted. He realized that he was fighting for his 
country, not for himself; and he knew, as few men did, how to 
forget himself for the cause. 

The company with which he entered Colonel Gregg's new reg- 
iment, if otherwise composed of unpromising material, had the 



18C3] 



THE UlSIIVEKSTTY MEMOEIAL. 461 



advantage of being admirably officered. But this advantage was 
of brief duration. In its first battle, that of Cold Harbor, firsl. 
Lieutenant John G. Barnwell was disabled by a wound, and 
" that most gallant and efficient officer and promising young cit- 
izen," Lieutenant Grimke Eliett, was lulled ; Lieutenant C. 
Pinckney Seabrook, a contemporary and friend of Captain 
Ha.skell at the University of Virginia, " after greatly distin- 
guishing himself on many fields, fell at Chancellorsville and 
yielded up his gentle and heroic spirit to the same holy cause to 
which his brother officers devoted theirs." Thus deprived of his 
officers and intimate friends, and with his company again and 
again decimated by the iron hail of war, he continued to gather up 
the fragments that remained after each battle ; and never relaxing 
his discipline in camp or losing enthusiasm in action, he failed not 
to distinguish his veterans and himself in every battle of the Army 
of Northern Virginia. 

It was in those hard and bloody campaigns, too fresh in the 
memory of all and too full of rapid detail to be even entered upon 
here, that the perfect man and the perfect soldier manifested 
themselves so that no one could mistake them. If he was great in 
the conspicuous qualities which such circumstances are calculated 
to develope, he was greater still in those rarer and grander qualities 
which only those who knew him intimately could properly 
estimate — in endurance, in unselfishness and in the most constant 
and consistent devotion to principle. He was as great in camp as 
in battle ; on the dusty march as in the glorious charge ; amid the 
gloom of despondency and doubt as in the hour of victory and hope. 
He was as heroic against heat and cold, and hunger and thirst and 
weariness, as ?.gainst the enemy. He could endure neglect or dis- 
appointment or failure as calmly and firmly asacharge of infimtry 
or the fire of artillery. And for a long time his life seemed 
charmed. His clothes were perforated by bullets, his cap was 
pierced directly in front, his sword was battered, but his person 
was unscathed. 

In 1863, in preparation for the invasion of Pennsylvania, the 
sharpshooters of the division were organized into a battalion, and 
Captain Haskell was selected to command it. On the 3d day 
of July following, at Gettysburg, he fell dead at its head, "while 
leading his men," says one, "with that serene courage and 
unselfish devotion which had characterized him through life." 



462 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [-ju^y^ 

We have been kindly favored with the following extract from 
the unpublished report of Pender's Division In the battle of Get- 
tysburg : 

"During a successful charge made to drive the enemy from a 
road in front of Cemetery Hill, Captain William T. Haskell, 
1st S.C. v., in charge of a select battalion of sharp shooters, received 
a M'ound from which he died in a few moments on the field. ' This 
brave and worthy young officer/ says Colonel Perrin in his official 
report of this transaction, ' fell while nobly walking along the 
front line of his command, encouraging his men and selecting 
favorable positions for them to defend. He was educated and 
accomplished, possessing in a high degree every virtuous quality 
of the true gentleman and Christian. He was an officer of most 
excellent judgment and a soldier of the coolest and most chivalrous 
daring.' " 

Colonel Perrin, whose tribute is given in this extract, was at the 
time in command of the brigade, and was made Brigadier-General 
for his conduct in this battle. No higher testimony could be 
given than that of this distinguished officer, who after a brilliant 
career, subsequently surrendered his own life in defence of his 
country. 

The following Is the conclusion of an obituary written soon after, 
by a superior officer of his own regiment : — " Captain Haskell, at 
the time of his death, was one of but three officers who had been 
through every engagement in which his regiment has participated, 
in none of which did he fail to distinguish himself. At Cold 
Harbor, Manassas, and Chancellorsville, his conduct was most 
strikingly conspicuous, 

"Such a character as Captain Haskell's deserves far more than 
the limits of such a notice as this allows. His was indeed no 
ordinary character. Would that fitter position had affiarded a 
larger sphere for the happy effiicts of its influence ! Fortunate 
indeed were those who had such an example before them — the 
example of a Christian soldier ! A courteous gentleman, a rigid 
disciplinarian, a careful observer, constantly attending to the wants 
and comfort of his men, a brave and heroic leader in battle, pre- 
judice against his discipline, at first new, misunderstood, and not 
appreciated, melted away before his conspicuous discharge of duty. 
He who would most rigidly enforce discipline, who knew no com- 
promise in the enforcement of orders, was found to be the first at the 



im-i.] 



THE UXIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 463 



bedside of the sick, bringing Avith him into the dreary hospital the 
tenderness of a woman, and with a touch like hers softening the 
hard pallet to the sick or wounded. Requiring an implicit 
obedience to his own orders, he yielded a like obedience to the 
orders of his superiors. Sharing whatever hardships his men 
were called upon to endure, he repressed all murmuring by his 
cheerfulness under them. He had no rule for his men which did 
not apply to himself. Every action, every word, seemed to be 
measured by his duty to his God and his country. Hardships 
were to be borne cheerfully, not complained of. He lay in his 
single blanket in the snow and ate his simple ration with the 
same cheerfulness as if he were enjoying the luxuries of home. 
While carefully taking every precaution, he could bear no fore- 
boding of evil. 

" Of his conduct in battle no fitter description can be found than 
his own language, in writing of his friend. Lieutenant Seabrook, 
after his death : — '' He was a brave man — nobly brave ! brave as 
a man can be who has committed his soul to God and given his 
life to his country.' True words of himself. He too had com- 
mitted his soul to his God, and, in his readiness to meet his Saviour, 
death had no terrors for him. Whatever ties there were to life, 
he was ready to sacrifice them to his country. That life, which 
he had freely offered on so many battle-fields, was at last taken 
in the bloody battle of Gettysburg. The loss is his friends', his 
fellow-soldiers', his country's — the gain his own ! Few have 
served their country so well ; none, we trust, rest more happily 
from their labors." 

The same mail brought to Mrs. Haskell the intelligence of the 
death of Captains Langdon Cheves, Charles T. Haskell, and Wil- 
liam T. Haskell, a brother and two sons,- one in the vigor of 
maturity, the others in the prime of youthful manhood. " These 
men," in the language of a public journal, which, in this instance 
at least, gave utterance to the public sentiment — "these men were 
all of the stuff of wiiich heroes are made. They all did the 
duties of life with earnestness ; all died the death of martyrs in a 
cause to which they had devoted themselves without stint; and 
of each of them, it is no exaggeration to say, the anxious inquiry 
has gone forth, Who can fill his place ? " 

In November, 1866, the remains of AVilliam Thompson 
Haskell were raised from the field of Gettysburg by the hands 



464 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[July, 



of his comrades and brought to his native town. At the depot 
they were met by the survivoi's of the old company with which 
he had originally entered the service, and escorted to the Episcopal 
Church, when, with solemn services and amid deep emotion, they 
were interred in the adjacent cemete.y. 

We have spoken of his rare gifts, of his heroic qualities, of his 
unselfish patriotism, and his devotion unto death. Let us add, in 
conclusion, that all these were animated by Christian principle 
and illuminated by Christian faith. The spirit of apostles, pro- 
phets, and martyrs, and of Him who is Head over all, had made 
its abode in him. A Divine Power had tempered into harmony 
and had exalted into lieroisra the natural qualities of the man. 
That Power has raised him to a glory infinitely transcending the 
glory of earthly success or human applause. 



JAMES RAWLINGS MAUPIN, 

Private, 2cl Richmond Howitzers. 

"Whatever may have been the division of sentiment in Virginia 
before the 15th of April, 1861, the call of President Lincoln upon 
her to furnish troops for the purpose of coercing other sister States 
united lier people in one patriotic mass ; and as the movement of 
the State then was the movement of her whole people, so was the 
costly sacrifice which she offered upon the altar of duty and devo- 
tion to right, made up of single jewels, gathered, with scarce an 
isolated exception, from every household in her borders. 

No rank in life was exempted, none shrank from the ordeal, and 
few indeed failed to pay a part of the costly and noble tribute. 

James Eawlings Maupin, eldest son of Professor Socrates 
Maupin and Mrs. Sally "Washington Maupin, of the University 
of Virginia, was born in Richmond on the 30th of January, 1843. 
He was not, therefore, eighteen years old when the lowmutterings 
of the coming storm began ; but young as he was, they fell with 
singular distinctness upon his boyish ear : and sprung from the 
same heroic blood that flowed through the veins of the great Vir- 
ginia hero of the eighteenth century, it Avas but meet that he 
should know, as it were by instinct, where duty and lienor called 



1SU3.] 



THE UNTVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 465 



him. None responded more quickly to the first call of the old 
Commonwealth, none maintained her cause with more manly 
courage or in a more unselfish spirit. 

Au instance of the quickness of this boy's discernment, and the 
distinctness with which he uttered what multitudes then doubted, 
has incidentally fallen under the writer's observation. 

In a letter written to an absent member of the same family 
circle, dated January 4th, 1861, occurs this passage : — " I suppose 
everything is very gloomy there, every one looking forward to a 
civil war and the hard times to come, for we are really going to 
have hard times, and when the war is once commenced there is no 
saying when it will end. . . . All the Northern States are in 
favor of coercion, and aj.'e making preparations for war ; so it is 
inevitable in two months." This sounds natural and obvious 
enough now, from our present standpoint ; but observe the date, 
and bear in mind that this letter was written by a boy not eighteen 
years old. Many older heads read the signs of the times with less 
of forecast. The very instincts of his manly nature taught him 
that the effort to coerce a free commonwealth, on the part of her 
colleagues, would and could only produce war. It was matter of 
impulse and feeling, not of philosophy, and hence the conclusion 
reached was like unto prophecy. Nor did he imbibe these opinions 
from the past associations of his boyhood's home. His father 
belonged to that large class of quiet, cultivated Virginia gentle- 
men Avho, while pursuing the even tenor of a literary and scien- 
tific life, kept aloof from the field of party politics, but who yet 
held and expressed clearly-defined views upon the current politics 
of the day. He had been from his early days a consistent Old 
Line Whig, regarding the Constitutional Union our fathers made 
as the palladium of our civil liberties. His son therefore had 
reached liis eighteenth year free fi'om the influence of those South- 
ern K:g:i:s Views, as tiiey were styled, erroneously supposed by 
some to have been universal in Virginia. Ke was sim2>ly a manly, 
high-spirited Virginia boy, and being himself i)art and parcel of 
the very core of Virginia's heart, he felt and knew that she would 
resist armed violence with all her force, no matter what the odds 
ao'ainst her. 

In his early childhood his constitution was too feeble for him 
to be confined as ordinary children, and thus until his tenth year 
he hal never been Kent to school, but was left wholly to gather 
30 



466 THE U?;iVEKSlTY ]\IEM0E1AL. ^j^^y^ 

sucli instruction from his mother as she thought it judicious to 
impose upon him. Those, however, who have been privileged to 
know what Virginia liomes and Virginia mothers have been in 
the past, and, thank God ! still are, will be slow to believe that 
the youtliful subject of this memoir lost much from this circum- 
stance. In 1853, his father removed from Richmond to the Uni- 
versity, and his son was j^laced in one of the schools in that 
vicinity, in which, down to his seventeenth year, he nmde the 
usual progress in the English branches and classics. In Septem- 
ber, 1859, he entered the excellent academy at Bloomfield, under 
the charge of INIessrs. Broun and Tebbs, and studied with tiiem 
one year. In October, 1860, he matriculated as a student of the 
University, entering the schools of Ancient and jNIodern Lan- 
guages and Mathematics, and his diligence and success were such 
as to satisfy the reasonable expectations of his friends. 

On the 15th of April, 18G1, the proclamation of President 
Lincoln calling out 75,000 troops tosup]>ress the ''rebellion," and 
requiring Virginia to furnish her quota, gave the final blow to all 
hopes of a peaceable solution of existing troubles, and left this 
State the choice only of which side she would fight on in a purely 
sectional war. There was not the slightest hesitation or slirinking. 
Within less than forty-eight hours the ordinance of secession was 
passed by the Virginia Convention, and volunteer troops were 
moving upon Harper's Ferry and the Gosport Navy Yard. There 
were then assembled at the University of Virginia six hundred and 
four high-spirited young men from every part of the South. The 
excitement and enthusiasm amongst them can be easily imagined, 
but not easily described. It is no part of our purpose to enter 
into details. It is sufficient to say that a large number of them 
took part in the expedition against Harper's Ferry, together with 
other volunteer companies, and when this was accomplished they 
hastened to their homes to enter the service in their respective States. 
Less than one hundred remained till the close of the session on the 
1st of July. Before the month of June was out. Dr. Maupin, 
vielding to his son's earnest entreaties, and moved doubtless also 
by his own higii sense of duty to his country, gave his consent, 
and without delaying a moment to ask for an appointment, or look 
for a soft place, this high-spirited youth, just eighteen, and accus- 
tomed to all the comforts of a refined and elegant home, entered 
the ranks as a private in the " Albemarle Artillery," a volunteer 



i';o3.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 46' 



company then rapidly forming in Charlottesville. On the 3d of 
July, 1861, this company, under Captain William H. Southall,of 
Albemarle, was received into service and sent to join General 
Magruder on the Peninsula, near Yorktown ; and there remained, 
doing at times much hard, and sometimes perilous service, until 
the army fell back before McClellan's overwhelming force in JNIay, 
1862. During this period his letters from camp were generally 
written in fine spirits, are often racy and graphic, but occasion- 
ally exhibit his restlessness at being kept so long in that quarter 
whilst more active fighting was going on elsewhere. 

In March, 1862, he received a letter from his father giving an 
account of the fall of Fort Donelson, and just about the same time 
the Confederate army was reorganized, and a call was made upon 
the volunteers to re-enlist. Young Maupin was among those 
who at once came forward, and knowing full well the practical 
hardships and dangers that lay before him, he re-enlisted as a 
private in the ranks for the war. 

In July, 1862, he was transferred to the 2d Company of Rich- 
mond Howitzers, Captain David Watson, and during the latter 
part of that month he was among those who took part in the ex- 
pedition under Colonel John Thompson Brown in a night attack 
with artillery upon the gunboats and transports lying in James 
River. Those who were in this expedition spoke of it as one of 
the striking scenes of the war ; and the hardships of the night 
march through mud, and rain, and darkness, and in the midst of 
a terrific thunderstorm, are said to have been more trying than the 
ordinary dangers of the battle-field. Following the Army of 
Northern Virginia through the brilliant and glorious campaign of 
1862, and always taking more or less part in its conflicts, he 
passed with his company in the early days of September, after the 
total rout of Pope's army at the second battle of Manassas, 
across the Potomac into Maryland. It is not appropriate here to 
narrate the stirring and rapidly shifting scenes of that brief but 
memorable campaign. 

When the battle of Sharpsburg or Antietam took place, his 
company was on detached service, and did not therefore participate 
in that fearful struggle, where less than 35,000 all told, through- 
out a long summer's day, hurled back again and again, in broken 
and routed columns, more than 120,000 men, led in person by the 
best officer who commanded the Federal forces daring the war. 



468 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. • ^j^ly, 

As a mere casual illustration of the heroic spirit animating the 
Southern people at that period, it may he mentioned that although 
the subject of this notice was not in this terrible figlit, yet a 
younger brother, a beardless boy of sixteen, was, and galhintly 
doing duty as a private in the Rt)ckbridge Artillery, under the eye 
of Stonewall Jackson. Such was the spirit and such the metal of 
which was made the "Army of Northern Virginia." Is it any 
matter of wonder that under the guidance of Lee and .Liokson, 
it became one of the most renowned armies the world has ever 
seen ? 

Returning to Virginia with Lee's army, our young friend fol- 
lowed its fortunes and movements until the battle of Fredericks- 
burg, in December, 1862, where he was again engaged and under 
fire, his company losing nine men killed and wounded and twenty- 
three horses. In the spring of 1863 the armies were once more in 
motion, and young Maupin was at his post with his company, 
sharing in full measure its perils and its gloric s. 

In the early days of May was fought the memorable battle of 
Chancellorsville, a splendid illustration of Southern skill and 
valor. In this glorious fight the 2d Richmond Howitzers was 
heavily engaged and rendered most important aid, and within a 
day or so our young friend, amidst the turmoil and the stirring 
scenes of a victorious battle-field, wrote a graphic account of the 
events that passed under his own eye. 

Early in June he moved with the Army of Northern Virginia 
for its second campaign across the Potomac. His company 
attached to Early's Division of Ewell's Corps, by a forced march 
reached Winchester about the middle of that month, and partici- 
pated in the capture of that post, though Milroy had made his 
escape an hour or two before. On the 21st of June they w^ere at 
Shephei'dstown, and shortly afterwards along with the division 
crossed the Potomac and moved rapidly forward to York and 
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and then suddenly reversing its course, the 
division fronted the enemy at Gettysburg on the 2d of July, 
1863. In the fearful fight of the 3d of July occurred the most 
terrific cannonade of the war. Its reverberations were heard in 
the mountains in sight of the University of Virginia, not less than 
onehundred and fifty miles from the scene of action. James R. 
Maupin and a young comrade of kindred spirit, H. T, Pendleton, a 
nephew of General Pendleton, were at the same gun, and in the Ian- 



isns] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEJAL. 4G9 

guage of their superior officer, "gallantly doing their duty as sol- 
diers/' when the same cannon-shot cut thera both down. Youiig 
Maupin died instantly, Pendleton in the course of half an hour. 
They fell in the evening near the close of the battle, and their com- 
rades in arms with affectionate sorrow buried them side by side on 
the field of glory, not twenty yards from where they fell. The 
graves were so located and marked that the spot was afterwards 
found and identified without difficulty, and the mortal remains of 
the youthful hero and patriot were removed, and interred among 
those of his maternal kindred at Washino-ton Citv, to be at some 
future time placed at rest in the family burying-ground at the 
University of Virginia. Many and touching were the testimo- 
nials to his worth and character received by his bereaved fauiily. 
We can find room for only a single one, and that a brief extract 
from a letter from one of the commissioned officers of his own 
regiment, and under whose eye he had often fought. He says: — 
" He died as he had lived, an unflinching soldier of his country, 
always at his post in the hour of danger and of duty. His officers 
and brother soldiers all testify to the gallantry and coolness with 
which he conducted himself. Such an exhibition of fortitude and 
courage was rarely seen in one so young. He was much beloved 
by all, and universally respected for his upright, courteous, and 
honorable deportment. For myself, I feel that I have lost a friend 
that cannot be replaced." 

Not often does an officer in time of actual war, just after the 
close of a fearful and disastrous though glorious battle, Avrite 
down stronger commendation of a private soldier, a boy scarcely 
out of his teens. So soon as his own company reached a suitable 
resting-place after their hazardous retreat, they too expressed in 
resolutions unanimously adopted, and in feeling terms, their sense 
of his worth and conduct as a soldier, and their own loss and grief 
at his untimely fall. 

Thus lell a noble youth, a martyr in the cause of liberty, at the 
early age of twenty, a fitting type of countless others who offered up 
their lives in defence of rights transmitted to them from their 
forefathers. Like so many others of the noblest in the land, he 
served his country, struggling for that independence which was 
hers of right, in an apparently humble capacity, but with a devo- 
tion and fidelity, a constancy and courage, surpassed perhaps by 
none of any rank. 



470 THE UIv'IVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[July, 



AVitlidrawn from his studies at the period of Jife most important 
to intellectual discipline and culture, he had not, of course, acquired 
that mental development which his native endowments and his 
position in life unmistakably promised. He had done but little 
more than indicate what he might have been. He possessed from 
boyhood a great taste for reading, and before entering the array 
had stored his mind Avith a great variety of historical information. 
His memory was especially accurate in reference to the dates and 
leading events of general history. No one can even glance over 
his numerous letters, written from the camp and the battle-field, in 
the unreserved and unaffected freedom of familiar family corres- 
pondence, without being struck with the moral side of his character; 
not only with the warm affection that breathes through them, 
but often with the genuine spirit of reverence and devout acknow- 
ledgment of a merciful Providence, whose guiding hand he felt 
and acknowledged to be over him, at times as a protecting shield. 

Such is a brief and imperfect sketch of one of Virginia's noble 
youth; and many there were cast in the same mould who dedi- 
cated themselves in the very morning of life to their country's 
cause and their country's service. We would be recreant to our 
common lineage and to our heritage of glory, if we could let their 
memory pass from us or from our children's children. 



BURDITT W. ASHTON, 

Private, Company C, 9tli Virginia Cavalry. 

BuRDiTT Washixgtox Ashton was born February 27th, 1840, 
at Mt. Lebanon, the residence of his parents, in King George 
county, Virginia. He was the second child of Charles H. Ashton 
and Mary Smith White, who were married in 1837. 

His paternal ancestors emigrated to Virginia from England 
immediately upon the overthrow of the House of Stuart and the 
usurpation by Cromwell. They were of the Cavalier party, and 
upon the success of the Roundheads they sought safety on this 
side of the Atlantic, bringing with them in the way of property 
what they wei'e able to save from the rapacious grasp of the domi- 
nant party. Upon reaching this country, they settled in thatpor- 



18G3.] 



TliE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 471 



tion of Virginia known in the Fairfax Charter as the " Northern 
Neck," and devoted themselves to agricultural pursuits, preferring 
with reason this peaceful calling to that of arras, in which they 
had risked all and lost. 

His maternal ancestors removed from England to this country 
at a later period, and engaged in similar pursuits. In the war of 
the Revolution, however, his maternal grandfather entered the 
army at its inception, and served M'ith honor and distinction under 
General Greene until its close. His paternal grandfather ren- 
dered efficient service as a partizan in the " War of 1812." 

BuEDiTT ASHTON" was therefore about the sixth direct lineal 
descendant of the paternal line after their settlement in Virginia. 
The reputation and honor of the ancient house could scarcely have 
fallen on one more worthy. 

Discovering at an early age a decided taste for study, which 
made him seize eagerly upon whatever books came to hand, he 
was gratified to the fullest extent in this regard by his parents; 
and as soon as it was practicable and expedient, he had the usual 
facilities for instruction in English, at the hands of both public 
and private tutors. The country at this time, however, afforded 
but few advantages for the study of tlie classics and polite litera- 
ture, and at the age of fifteen he found himself greatly deficient 
in these branches of learning. 

He was then sent to Hanover Academy, and placed under the 
instruction of that genial gentleman and profound scholar, Lewis 
M. Coleman. Having now a favorable opportunity to gratify his 
early taste for study, and a fair prospect of realizing his fondest 
literary ambitions, he devoted himself with energy and close appli- 
cation to his duties. He remained three years at Mr. Coleman's 
school, preparing himself for the University of Virginia, which 
institution he entered in the fall of 1859, with the intention of 
pursuing the requisite course for the degree of Master of Arts. 
Here he evinced the same devotion to study, at once took rank as 
a man of mind, and met with considerable success in his classes, 
graduating the first year in the school of Latin, and attaining to 
distinction at both examinations in the Intermediate Class of 
INIathematics ; and the second year, graduating in the school of 
Pnre Mathematics. In December, 1860, he sustained a severe 
loss in the suchlen death of his father, an event which necessitated 
a temporary witiidrawal from college, that lie might make suitable 



472 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[only, 



provision for his mother and sister. He li^d scarcely recovered 
from this shock, when, in the first months of 1861, the great 
political issues began to occupy t!>e public mind, and the conse- 
quent excitement which swept the wliole country invaded even 
tiie quiet domains of the University and unfitted the student for 
his work. 

When the tocsin of war was sounded, Burditt Ashton was 
not slow to know his duty. He saw that Virginia was menaced, 
and needed all her sons for her defence ; and with those patriotic 
thousands who rushed to her aid in her first hour of danger, he 
identified himself as a private soldier. Xot that he was fond of 
war or delighted in its bloody horrors, but from a calm sense of 
duty to tlie land that gave him birth ho enrolled himself among 
her defenders. He became a member of Comjiany K, 30th Vir- 
ginia Infantry, in July, 1861, but in the spring of '62 he was 
transferred to Company C, 9th Virginia Cavalry, in order that he 
might be with his younger brother, Charles Asliton, who belonged 
to that company. 

Like most of those who had been unaccustomed to hardship 
and exposure in their previous life, he soon became an efficient and 
hardy soldier. He participated, with the cavalry of the Army of 
Northern Virginia, in nearly all of those brilliant exploits which 
struck such terror into the ranks of their enemies, and won for 
them the admiration of both armies, and a glory that can never 
fade. He escaped, however, unscathed, until the summer of 1863, 
when General Lee moved his army upon Gettysburg. 

On that bloodiest day in the calendar of our short national history 
— the 3d of July, 1863 — in the cavalry charge ordered by Fitz Lee, 
he sealed with his blood his devotion to his country's cause. 
But, like many nameless heroes whose bones lie bleaching from the 
hills of Gettysburg to the Avaters of the Rio Grande, his grave 
is unknown and unmarked. Immediately upon his fall, our 
troops were forced to retire, and their dead were left in the hands 
of the enemy. As, in the excitement of tlie charge, no one saw 
him fall, his name was placed in the list of the " missing," and 
his family and friends fondly hoped he had been made a prisoner 
and would be restored to them ; but no tidings of him have ever 
reached them, and now no doubt is entertained that he sleeps 
among the unknown braves who immortalised that bloody field. 

Thus, as briefly as the facts admit, the literary experience and 
military career of Burditt Ashton have been sketched. It 



,co;] TI-IE UXIVEESITY ilEMOEIAL. • 4<3 

remains now to glance at his private character, which was as 
comely as it Avas honorable. " The whole of his short life," says 
one who was intimately connected and associated with him from 
his childhood till his death — " the whole of his short life was as 
pure avA as free from stain or blot as it is in the power of mortals 
to attain. As a son, there was none more dutiful, loving, or 
obedient, none more solicitous to merit parental approbation and 
the aifection which was lavished upon him ; as a brother, he was 
affectionate and unselfish, with always a kindly word for his elder 
sister and younger brother; as a friend, he was generous and 
impulsive. Quiet and easy in his deportment, he was popular 
with his associates, both at home and at college. Always securing 
the esteem of his instructors, he numbered many of them among 
his warm personal friends. Of these, the late Colonel Coleman, 
and his successor at Hanover Academy, Colonel H. P. Jones, might 
be mentioned." 

But these accomplishments and these fine points of character 
which adorn the outer man are as nothing when compared with 
the jewel which he wore in his heart, and which was his confidence 
in the hour of death. The crown of his life was his trust in God. 
At tlie early age of fourteen, under the training of his pious 
parents, he had committed his soul to the Saviour ; soon afterwards 
he was confirmed at the Old Fork Church, in Hanover county, by 
the Right Rev. Bishop Johns, and thenceforth his life was emi- 
nently Christian. Had liis life been spared, it was his purpose, 
after making the needful preparation, to preach the Gospel. A 
gentleman who formed his acquaintance and friendship while a 
school-bov at Hanover Academy, and afterwards roomed M'ith him 
at the University, uses the following strong language in regard to 
him: — 

" I never saw a more beautiful Christian in my life. Truly 
pious and conscientious, he was prompted in every act by duty 
and principle. By close application, he was storing his strong and 
vigorous mind with knowledge, to be used in the Master's cause. 
Uninfluenced by any worldly or personal consideration, and with 
an eye to the glory of God, he had dedicated himself to His work 
and service. Had he lived, he would have entered the ministry 
as an Episcopal clergyman." 

" It is well," then, with him. His ministry has only been 
transferred to a higher sphere. Up, there, away beyond the stars, 
they that wait for the Lord shall meet him "in the morning." 



474 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. ^juiy, 

WILLIAM SINCLAIR BOOTON, 

Private, 8tli Georgia Infantry, 

It is not intended that the merits of men whose names are 
fonnd in this volume, shall be measured simply by pages of 
printed biography. Such a standard would do gross injustice to 
many of them, concerning whom it has been found impossible, 
after the most diligent search, to secure material for a proper me- 
morial record. Thus only the most fragmentary information has 
been obtained touching the career of William S. Booton, of 
Rome, Georgia; a man whose talents and promise, whose piety 
and patriotism alike render him worthy of an- extended notice. 

The youngest son and child of Sinclair and Mary J. Booton, 
he was born in Madison county, Virginia, November 9th, 1838. 
His father having died when he was an infant of only one year, 
his training and education devolved upon his pious mother. In 
October, 1857, he matriculated as an academic student at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, registering himself from Rome, Georgia, to 
which place his family had removed some years before. His 
reverence for sacred things, his habitual attendance upon the 
public services of the Sabbath, and his exemplary conduct, gave 
abundant evidence of the healthful influences under which his 
moral character had been formed. 

The following year the writer became more intimately ac- 
quainted with William Booton, and learned to admire his well- 
rounded character. A man of vigorous intellect, he was also an 
industrious student, and had taken rank for proficiency among 
the first in his classes. His associations were among the Chris- 
tian young men of the University, whose cordial friendship 
he had won, though not himself a professor of religion ; many of 
these "passed over the river" before him, but of them such men 
for example as William P. Louth.an, Robert T. Estes, AYilliam S. 
Wright, and Walter F. Shepherd, would not, if living, blush to 
have their names associated with his. Among his associates who 
still live are prominent representatives of the pulpit, bar, and 
lecture-room. 

In the early winter of 1858-9 there was considerable religious 
interest in the Charlottesville Ba])tist Church, of which Rev. John 
A. Broaddus [now of Greenville, South Carolina] was then pastor. 



:863.] THE U^^IVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 475 

This interest extended to such students of the University as were 
in the habit of attending services in the Baptist Church, and 
William Booton, among others, made a public confession of his 
faith in Christ and Mas baptized by Mr. Broaddus. During tlie 
remainder of the session he was a punctual attendant at the 
prayer-meeting conducted by the students in the vicinity of his 
boarding-house, taking such part as his duty required, but always 
with apparent diffidence. And thus he lived, in the full confi- 
dence of his young brethren, and commanding the respect of his 
large acquaintance. 

At the close of the session of 1858-59, William Booton re- 
ceived diplomas in the schools of Latin, Natural Philosopliy, and 
Mathematics — a handsome testimony both to his ability and to his 
application ; and taking leave of his friends, he returned to Rome 
and quietly settled down as a teacher. 

Once afterwards the writer saw him. It was when Johnston, 
camping his army about Centreville and Fairfax Court House, 
was holding the heights in front of Washington with regimental 
pickets. Booton, then a private in the 8th Georgia Infantry, was 
standing under arms with his regiment at Mason's Hill, awaiting 
orders to march, he knew not whither. A cordial grasp of the 
hand and a few words of greeting were all the time allowed to 
friends who were to meet no more on the earth. His nut-brown 
uniform contrasted strongly with the burnished musket he held 
loosely in his hand, but with the air of a man who would not 
shrink from using it. No one who knew him doubted that the 
air was the prophecy of the deed. 

The following brief statement, too brief for those who loved 
him and would fain liear all the story of an unpretending yet 
glorious career, sums up his military life: — 

"At the breaking out of the war in 1861, he promptly volun- 
teered for the war in a company formed in Rome, and marched 
Avith his comrades to Virginia; was actively engaged in liis 
country's service from the day of his eidistmcnt; participated in 
all the battles in which iiis command was engaged, from First Ma- 
nassas to Gettysburg ; where, nobly and bravely battling for his 
country's rights, he fell and died instantly on the 3d of July, 
18G3." 



476 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. |-j,,]y^ 

GEORGE R. BEDINGER, 

Captain, o3d Virginia Infantry. 

George Rust Bedinger was the son of the Hon. Henry 
Bediuger, a representative of Virginia in the United States Con- 
gress, and at one time Minister to Denmark. He was born on 
the 10th of July, 1840. At the age of eighteen, he entered the 
University of Virginia as a student, and remained there till the 
beginning of the late Avar in 1861. His student-life was one of 
much pleasure to himself and to all who knew him. He was social 
and genial in his disposition, full of life and gaiety, cheerful and 
generous and manly. On one occasion, in the lecture-room, he 
was guilty of some indiscretion, by which he was causing merri- 
ment among Jiis companions, and for which he was reprimanded 
by the Professor. Yielding to an impulse to resent a reproof 
whicl), in his boyishness, he construed as an insult, he left his seat, 
and, with defiant strides and an angry countenance, traversed the 
whole length of the room, and passed out at the door near to the 
Professor's stand, casting a contemptuous look, as he closed the 
door, upon the courteous gentleman who had found it necessary to 
reprove him. Before the close of the lecture, however, the door 
was opened, and in he boldly walked, to the astonishment and 
delight of such of his fellow-students as had applauded his angry 
exit. They little suspected what was to follow. He took his 
seat quietly and respectfully on the front row of seats, facing the 
Professor, and sat in respectful silence till the close of the lecture. 
He then rose, and Avithout shame-facedness or hesitation, stated 
to the Professor that he had returned to apologize, not only for his 
violation of the rules which should regulate the students in the 
class-room, but for his rudeness in resenting the reproof which had 
been given him. He made no promises, but felt that he had given 
offence, and that an acknowledgment of his error should be made 
then and there. The boldness and frankness of his apology, and 
of his manner of making it, endeared him more than ever to ])is 
former friends, and gained for him the most hearty good-will of 
every young man present. This incident was related to the Avriter 
a few years ago by a distinguished graduate of the University who 
was present at the time, and not personally acquainted with Bed- 
inger. In his relation of it, he recalled the looks and tones of 



ISCS.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 47'i 



the boy (as he called the young hero) when he came back and wlien 
he addressed the Professor, and enthusiastically pronounced the 
whole scene as splendid. By qualities such as are indicated by this 
incident he endeared himself to his fellow-students and teachers 
during his student-life, and to his comrades and "acquaintances 
during the few years of his life in the army. 

On leaving the University, early in the year 1861, he joined a 
company from the county of Jefferson, in which he resided, and 
was enlisted as a private in tlie 2d Virginia Regiment of Infantry. 
Just before the army of General Joseph E. Johnston left Winches- 
ter to join the rest of the Southern troops at Manassas, in July? 
1861, he, with several other intelligent members of his company, 
was assigned to duty temporarily with the Rockbridge Artillery, 
then commanded by Captain (afterwards General) Pendleton. The 
occasion of this detail was the addition of a gun to the battery, 
which required more men than at that time belonged to it. He 
found in this command many congenial companions, some of whom 
he had known at the University ; and soon after the first battle 
of Manassas, he was regularly transferred from his regiment and 
enrolled in the Rockbridge Artillery. He served with it on the 
21st of July, 1861, was a member of it during the winter campaign 
of General Stonewall Jackson to Bath and Roraney, during the 
rapid marches and countermarches along the Valley of Virginia 
in the spring of 1862, at the battle of Kernstown, near Winches- 
ter, on the 23d of March, 1862, and throughout the fatiguing and 
brilliant strategic movements, skirmishes, and battles of that year, 
in which the genius of " Stonewall " first shone out to the delight 
of the Confederacy and the astonishment of her adversary. In 
camp and on the march, Bedixger was always gay and cheerful, 
and, though reared in ease and affluence, madef himself and his 
comrades merry amid their privations and discomforts. During 
the long, vigorous artillery duel in which his battery (then com- 
manded by Captain McLaughlin) was engaged at Kernstown, lie 
was always in tiie right place, and, in spite of the dangers to wliich 
he was exposed and of which he was fully conscious, could not 
resist the temptation to be merry and to provoke merriment in 
others, at his own and his companions' occasional impulses to dodge 
the noisiest shells with which the enemy were making tlie day 
hideous. 

In the summer of 1862 he left the battery, having received from 



478 THE UKIVEESITY MEMOFJAL. ^j.^j,.^ 

the Government at Rlclimond a commission and authority to 
raise a company of cavalry in the Valley. He failed in his attempt 
to organize this new force, and was appointed, during the fall 
of that year, Captain, and assigned to duty in the 33d Regiment 
of Virginia Infantry. This regiment was composed mainly of 
Valley troops, and was attached till the close of the war to the 
" Stonewall Brigade." He was an entire stranger to the Lieuten- 
ants and men of his company when assigned to duty over them, 
but soon gained their respect by his impartial and vigorous dis- 
cipline. Many of the men of his company were Irishmen, whom 
he humorously referred to as his myrmidons. He was in command 
of this company till his death, in July, 1863, at Gettysburg. His 
fate, like that of many others M'ho fell on that bloody field, was 
not known certainly throughout the army for months afterwards. 
His friends, who could hear no more than that he had fallen on th.e 
field, hoped that he had been Mounded only, and that he would 
be cared for with other wounded prisoners. As the news through 
the Northern press found its way to us here, many a heart inquired 
for hira most anxiously. At last, however, this hope failed, and 
his many friends, to whom he had been endeared at school, at 
the University, and in the army, were forced to knov/ that they 
had lost another companion and friend, distinguished by mental 
accomplishments and splendid virtues. 

He was of medium height, active, strong, and graceful. His face 
was attractive, more by reason of its expression than of any regu- 
larity of feature. His countenance was, in the main, a merry one, 
but could change with wonderful readiness. His voice was 
pleasant and musical in conversation. He showed great fondness 
for music and drawing, and his taste in both had been cultivated. 
He was said to have closely resembled his father in all those 
delightful social accomplishments which are attributed to the 
latter by those who knew him well. His friends who survive 
him delight to recall his features and the incidents of his life, and 
will dwell on the pleasures of a fx'iendship, sundered so early, with 
ever-increasing regret at his bloody fate. 



iS(i3.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 479 

WRENN BROTHERS. 

Walter Wkknn, M. a., Captain, and A. A. G., Pryor's Brigade ; and 
Fenxon Eley Wrenx, 2d Lieutenant, Company I, 3d Virginia Infantry. 

" Alas, for both, both miuc ! 

What stays had I but thc-y ? aud they are gone ! " 

Caj^taiii Walter Wrenx, Assistant Adjutant-General of 
Pryor's Brigade, was a son of Dr. Albert E. and Mrs. Eliza 
Carroll Wi'enn. He was born in Isle of AVight county, Virginia, 
on the 29th of May, 1836, and fell at the second baUle of Ma- 
nassas, August 30tli, 1862, aged twenty-six years, three months 
and one day. 

When quite young, though well advanced in his studies for his 
age, he was sent to the school of Mr. Frederick W. Coleman, in 
Caroline county ; and when that gentleman retired from the 
business of teaching, and his nephew and assistant, Mr. Lewis M. 
Coleman, opened the Hanover Academy, Walter Wrexn fol- 
lowed him, and continued with him until he was prepared to enter 
college. 

In October, 1853, he matriculated at the University of Vir- 
ginia, and at once took rank among the best students at that in- 
stitution. During the session of 1851-55 he M^as a member of 
the Washington Literary Society ; and at some time during his 
college course (though the date is not remembered by the writer), 
he became a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church. It is 
pleasant to believe, with those who knew hira intimately in after- 
life and had opportunities of judging concerning his Christian 
character, that he walked in the light of God ^ven until the end. 

In June, 1856, at the close of his third term at the University, 
and before he had reached his majority, Walter Wrexx Avas 
graduated Master of Arts. 

It was no mean comjdiment to him that he was now invited to 
return to Hanover Academy as an assistant. He had already 
given abundant proof of his powers of acquisition ; but, as is 
well known among professional teachers, the ability to acquire is 
not always nor even commonly accompanied by an equal skill and 
facility in imparting instruction. The keen eye and penetrating 
judgment of Mr. Coleman had, however, marked him as one who 



480 THE UKIVEKSITY MEMOKIAL. [-j^jy^ 

would be no less apt to teach than he had been to learn ; and 
accordingly he offered him a position in his scliool. 

Wrexn accepted the invitation, M'ent back to the scene of his 
school days, and entered upon a new and more intimate relation 
to his old teacher. Among his colleagues at tliat tijiie was H. P. 
Jones, M. A., who graduated in the same class with himself at the 
University, and who succeeded Mr. Coleman as Principal of 
Hanover Academy. 

For two years he remained in this scliool, discharging all the 
while the trying duties of an assistant with such fidelity and ur- 
banity as to win upon both teachers and pupils. At the end of 
this period, having determined to qualify himself the better for 
his profession as teacher by a course of study in Europe, he gave 
up his position in the Academy ; but before leaving for the home 
of his parents in Isle of Wight, he received from his pupils a 
handsome gold chain and seal as a testimonial of their affectionate 
regard for him. 

In the fall of 1858 he sailed from New York to Liverpool, and, 
after a brief sojourn in England, crossed over to the Continent. 
There he studied in the Universities of Paris, Dresden, and Berlin ; 
spending most of his time, however, in the latter place, v/here he 
received several diplomas, and became intimately acquainted with 
some of the Professors. Before returning to America he made a 
tour through southern Europe, visiting in Rome our artist. Gait, 
who was then engaged on the statue of Jefferson which now 
graces the library of the University of Virginia. Tlien sailing 
via Calais and Havana, he reached New Orleans in the spring of 
1860. 

The writer is not informed how Mr. "Wrenn s})ent his time 
until the opening of tlie civil war; but in 18G1, when Virginia 
withdrew from the Federal Union, he was one of a i>arty of gen- 
tlemen who raised ti;e first company in Isle of Wight. Upon its 
organization th.e late Colonel A. D. Callcote, who was a graduate 
of the Virginia Military Institute, was elected Captain, and him- 
self 1st Lieutenant. The company was assigned, as Company I, to 
the 3d Virginia Infantry, Colonel Roger A. Pryor, then on duty 
at Day's Point, on Jiines River. 

Lieutenant Weexx soon became a f ivorite with Colonel Pryor, 
who, in July, 1861, appointed him Judge-Advoeate of a rogi- 
mentul court. In December of the same year, while Company 



jggg-j THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 481 

I was on duty at a sea-coast battery, some fifteen miles from camp, 
he was made Judge-Advocate of a general court-martial for the 
1st Brigade. 

When Pryor was promoted to Brigadier-General in the spring 
of 1862, he chose Lieutenant Wrenn as his Assistant Adjutant- 
General, with which office he took the rank of Captain. In this 
capacity he served at the battle of Williamsburg, May 5tb, and 
for gallantry in action he was, with an Alabama Lieutenant, highly 
complimented by General Pryor in his official report of that en- 
gagement. In consequence of severe illness, brought on by the 
exposure and fatigue of the march up the Peninsula, Captain 
Wrenn was not present at the battle of Seven Pines, nor in the 
seven days' fight before Richmond. 

Shortly after the army returned to camp near the capital, he 
was appointed Judge-Advocate of a court-martial for Long- 
street's Division, Brigadier-General Wilcox being President; but 
when the army left Richmond to co-operate with Jackson against 
Pope in Northern Virginia, he was left behind to superintend the 
forwarding of supplies. He rejoined his command, however, 
about four days before the second battle of Manassas, when he met 
his untimely end. 

Here, on the 30th of August, 1862, while cheering on a charge 
of the 4th Alabama, he was shot through the region of the heart, 
and died almost instantly. Those who saw him afterwards say 
that his face bore no mark of pain, but an expression of calm, un- 
faltering determination. 

After the battle his old company, commanded by his old Captain, 
who was then Lieutenant-Colonel of the 3d Virginia, was detailed 
and left behind to bury him. This was done with all the honors 
of war. They made his grave about a hundred and fifty yards 
immediately in rear of the old Stone House, and some three- 
quarters of a mile from where he fell. On the board they put 
at its head was written : — ' 

Captain Walter Wrenn, 

A. A. GenT, Prj'or's Brigade ; 

Killed Aug. 30th, 18G2, •svhilc leading a charge. 

To his chivalrous conduct and glorious death on the field. 
General Pryor made reference in his official reports of tliat battle, 
31 



482 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL, [j„jy^ 

dated " Headquarters near Winchester, October 5th, 1862." We 
give his words : — 

" Among the killed, however, was my Assistant 

Adjutant-General, Captain Walter Wrenn; a young gentle- 
man of the purest and most amiable character, of a genius devel- 
oped and adorned by rare attainments in every department of 
polite learning, and of a courage which had serenely confronted 
death on more than one battle-field. He fell in the moment of 

victory and in the act of cheering on a charge 

" Very respectfully, your obedient servantj 

'^ EoGEE A. Peyor, 
" Brigadier-General Commanding." 



One sacrifice like this, so rich, so costly, was enough, it would 
seem, for a single family to make. It was, indeed, enough for 
grief, enough for glory, enough to write in imperishable charac- 
ters the name lllanassas upon every heart in that stricken house- 
hold, but not enough to purchase the liberties of a noble but op- 
pressed people. And so in this case, as in hundreds of others, this 
stern lesson had to be learned, how to suffer and be strong, how to 
drink to the dregs the cup of affliction, and then hold it to be 
filled again by the hand of the oppressor ; so Manassas and Get- 
tysburg were to be synonyms, binding together in the hallowed but 
glorious memories of the past the names of Walter and Fenny 
Wrenn. 

Fenton Eley Wrenn, Walter's younger brother, was born 
in Isle of Wight county, on the 19th of October, 1839. He too 
was a bookish child. When only seven years old he was sent to 
a neighboring boarding-school, and hence, in part, arose that self- 
reliance which was a characteristic of his after-life. At the age 
of thirteen he joined his brother at Hanover Academy, and con- 
tinued there for six sessions, maintaining a creditable standing 
among Mr. Coleman's best pupils. 

In the fall of 1858 he became a student at the University of 
Virginia, and there the beginning of hostilities found him. He 
had up to that time graduated on a sufficient number of subjects 
to justify the reasonable expectation of taking the Master's Degree 



jggg^ THE UEIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 483 

at the session of 1861-62. Instead of returning to college, how- 
ever, he felt it to be his duty to enter the service of his country. 
Indeed, some time before the close of his last terra there, he had 
directed his name to be placed upon the roll of his brother's com- 
pany. 

He served until after the battle of Williamsburg as a private in 
Company I, 3d Virginia Infantry ; but on the march up the 
Peniusula he was appointed Sergeant-Major of the regiment, and 
in this capacity he participated in the battle of Seven Pines. 

Shortly after this engagement he was stricken down with an 
aggravated form of camp fever, and was carried to Richmond for 
treatment. During his absence from the regiment he was informed 
by letter of his election as 2d Lieutenant of his old company. At 
the expiration of a furlough which was granted him when he be- 
came convalescent, he returned to his post, rejoining the army at 
or near Leesburg, and crossing with it into Maryland. 

At Sharpsburg he was severely wounded, and he thought at 
first mortally, by the bursting of a ball in his overcoat which 
happened to be hanging on his arm. A piece of it penetrated to 
the bone just over the heart, and caused him to spit blood pro- 
fusely. By the direction of his commanding officer he went to 
the rear, and on the way met General Lougstreet, who with his 
staff was endeavoring to rally the stragglers and fugitives. The 
General upon seeing him said with bitterness, " And here is an 
officer coming to the rear ! " Lieutenant Wrenn immediately 
went to him, told him his condition, his name, and his regiment. 
General Lougstreet at once apologized, and directed him to go on, 
adding very kindly that he hoped he would soon be fully restored. 
Wkenn was sent to Staunton, where he was furloughed again, but 
returned to meet his regiment about the 1st of October, at Cul- 
peper Court-House. 

The 3d Virginia had then been assigned to Kemper's Brigade, 
Pickett's Division, of Longstreet's Corps. In this command he 
participated in the battle at Fredericksburg, went with Kemper 
to Kingston, North Carolina, took part in the investment of Suf- 
folk, and returned thence through Petersburg and Ilichmond to 
its camp near Hanover Junction — tlic scene of so many of his 
schoolboy pleasures. He accompanied the expedition down the 
Northern Neck to chastise marauders after the burning of Tappa- 
hannock, and made thence the immediate and incessant march via 



484 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. ^j^^i^^ 

Culpejier Court-House to Snicker's Gap. With the corps which 
was accompanied by General Lee, lie waded the Potomac at Wil- 
liamsjiort and camped near Chambersburg with Pickett's Division, 
which was left behind to tear up the railroad. Early in the 
morning of the 2d of July the division marched to the vicinity of 
Gettysburg and bivouacked. 

On the morning of July 3d he was with the division on the 
field quite early, and was immediately in rear of our artillery — 
one hundred and forty-five pieces — posted on Seminary Ridge. 
During the duel which opened the battle on that part of the line, 
and lasted over two hours, he was engaged in ministering to the 
wounded ax'ound, whether of his own company or not. It re- 
quired courage of the highest order to enable him thus to do, for 
the enemy at one time had the exact range, and the scene was ren- 
dered fearful by the bursting shells which literally mangled the 
bodies of the men. 

In the terrible charge which Pickett then led. Lieutenant 
AVrenn Avas the only officer with his company, and hence had 
much to do. That was his last duty, and he performed it well. 
He passed unhurt with his thinned line into the captured works 
on Cemetery Ridge, and when the order to fall back was given, 
although against his judgment, he attempted to obey. Only four 
of his men were willing to follow him, and with these he passed 
out into the valley of death. 

He was seen no more by friendly eye. For fifteen months his 
friends hoped he had been taken prisoner and that he would be 
restored to them. Nothing was ever heard concerning his fate, 
and by degrees they began to think of a reunion in heaven. 
Before the evil days came he had remembered his Creator; while 
a student at the University he had given his heart to Christ, and 
confessed Him before men, joining, like his brother, the Episcopal 
Church. We believe he has realized the promise, " Him that con- 
fesseth me before men will I confess before my Father and His 
holy angels." 



isoc] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOKIAL. 485 

JUNIUS B. FRENCH, 

Adjutant, 23d North Carolina Infantry. 

Junius Butler Fiiencii was born near Warrenton, Fanquler 
county, Virginia, August 7tlt, 1837. He was of" Virginia parentage 
of the old stock, his father's family having come from Ireland, and 
his maternal great-grandfather, James Henry, from Scotland, many 
years before the Revolution. The latter was a Judge under the 
Crown, and after independence a member cf the Assembly from 
Accomac. 

Stephen French, his grandfather, a native of Prince William 
county, Virginia, was a soldier In the Revolutionary war, and 
though only eighteen years of age, endured the hardships of 
Valley Forge, and participated in the memorable battle of York- 
town. 

Junius was a high-spirited and promising boy, having a great 
thirst for information and a love of study. As an instance of his 
fearless disposition, the writer of this memoir saw him, when a 
small boy, hold the bottom of a tin cup in his fingers while an 
elder brother, in his boyish rashness, shot several bullets through 
it with a pistol ; and so steady did Junius hold it tliat the holes 
were nearly joined in the centre. During his eighteenth year, 
while living on the frontier of \yestern Texas, he was one day 
practising with his six-shooter on horseback, when he accidentally 
shot himself in the leg, and, though painfully wounded, he treated 
himself, without the least concern or desire for surgical aid, which 
could not be easily procured on the frontier. 

His first schooling began at the age of five years, at the AVarren 
Green Academy, under the tuition of Mr. Ridhard M. Smith, the 
well-known war-editor of the Enquirer and Sentinel. He re- 
mained seven years at the Academy, and his parents removing to 
Washington, I). C, at the age of twelve, he was entered at the 
Columbian College. He remained at that institution until the 
death of his father, after which he was sent to a boarding-school 
in Prince William county, kept by a brother of General Ewell. 
In 1853 his mother and sisters went to live in Brooklyn, New 
York, and Junius accompanied them as their only protector, his 
two older brothers having emigrated to Texas the year before. 
Being now sixteen years of age, his mother thought it best to put 



486 THE UKIYEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



■[July, 



him to business in New York. !For this, though of a business 
turn and of an industrious and energetic nature, he was entirely 
unsuited, on account of a temper which rendered him utterly inca- 
pable of occupying the place of a menial or of enduring the 
insulting treatment which all boys must expect who wish to 
qualify themselves for business in the Northern cities. In conse- 
quence of this disposition he soon lost two excellent situations, 
having had difficulties on account of what he considered disre- 
spectful treatment. About this time, one of his brothers being 
on a visit to New York, he went with him on his return to Texas, 
where he remained over a year on the Western frontier. Plere 
many incidents happened which would show his bravery and reso- 
lution as a youth, but as that was sufficiently demonstrated during 
his service as a soldier and at his death upon the battle-field of 
Gettysburg, they may be passed over. In the spring of 1856 he 
left Texas and returned to his mother and sisters. 

In 1857 he entered upon the study of Law at the University 
of Virginia. After leaving the University, in 1859, he went to 
the law-school of Judge Pearson, in North Carolina; and in 1860 
he commenced the practice of law with Judge Osborn, in the. city 
of Charlotte, in that State. He gave great promise of success in 
his profession. 

In 1861 he took the stump in favor of Secession: As soon as 
the first gun was fired in South Carolina, he hastened thither to 
do his part as a defender of the South, and saw the fall of Fort 
Sumpter. Upon his return to Charlotte he enlisted in the 
"Hornet's Nest Rifles," a volunteer company which was one of 
those organized into the 1st North Carolina Regiment, Colonel 
D. H. Hill commanding. With his regiment he participated in 
the first battle in Eastern Virginia, at Big Bethel. He served in 
that regiment until the reorganization of the army in 1862, when 
he was appointed Sergeant-Major of the 42d North Carolina Reg- 
iment. He was afterwards appointed Adjutant of the 23d North 
Carolina Regiment, and served witli gallantry wherever his com- 
mand was engaged, in the Army of Northern Virginia, until his 
death. 

The 23d North Carolina belonged to Iverson's brigade of Rodes' ■ 
division, Ewell's corps. This division, and Early's of the same 
corps, along with Pender's and Heth's divisions of Hill's corps, 
were the only Confederate troops engaged in the first day's action 



1863.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 487 

at Gettysburg. In the general forward sweep of the Confederate 
forces, after Ewell had forced Barlow back and Rodes had pierced 
the centre of the Union line, Adjutant FiiENCii had his foot shat- 
tered by a ball just as his regiment and division were pressing the 
enemy into the single skirt of woods that cut the plain. At the 
moment, he was walking along his line, and urging forward his men. 
While lying on the field he was struck witli two other bullets, one 
of which entered the thigh, and ranging upward, penetrated his 
abdomen. From this wound he died calmly at daybreak on the 
morning of the 2d of July, liaving lived long enough to witness 
and rejoice in the victory of his countrymen. 



LESLIE MOSBY, 

Lieutenant, and A. D. C. to General Wharton. 

Leslie Mosby was the youngest son of Charles L. and Mary 
Eliza Mosby, of Lynchburg, Virginia, where he was born on the 
the 31st of July, 1839. From earliest childhood he was literally 
the darling of a most affectionate home circle, the pride of his 
father's heart, "the well-beloved of his mother." Of remarkably 
handsome person, great sprightliness of mind, modest and attrac- 
tive manners, and most amiable and unselfish nature, he grew up 
a rare combination of manly excellence, and went down to the 
grave in the very dawn of a most bright and promising manhood. 
At the commencement of the war, having recently returned from 
the Universitj^, he entered the service as a pi^vate in the " Home 
Guard," 11th Virginia Regiment, then commanded by Captain 
(afterwards General) Garland. On the far-famed field of Manassas 
he performed for months the duties of a common soldier, not only 
without a murmur, but witli cheerfulness and alacrity ; and return- 
ing home soon after the battles of July, '61, in which he partici- 
pated, he was seized with a malignant typhoid fever, from the 
effects of which it is believed he never fully recovered. 

Subsequently, on the formation of the Virginia State Line, he 
was invited by General Floyd to become a member of his staff, 
and received a commission of Lieutenant of caVah-y. How ac- 



488 THE UlsIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [August, 

ceptably he filled the duties of his new position may be determined 
by the following letter, addressed to his father by an associate of 
the staff on receiving intelligence of his death. After expressing 
the deepest sympathy and sorrow at the sad event, he says : — 

" In addition to the proper duties of aide, Leslie usually dis- 
charged those of Provost-Marshal, and often of Adjutant-Gen- 
eral. In the latter office he displayed marked ability. His 
orders were drawn with an ease, clearness, and brevity which 
called from the General the remark, ' that whatever he directed 
him to write, he did with an accuracy and propriety unequalled 
by any one he ever knew.' .... 

" He usually acted as the General's confidential secretary, and 
was regarded as his favorite aide. . . . Indeed, the old soldier 
always treated his young friend with fatherly tenderness, but at 
the san e time with a delicate respect and consideration equally 
honorable to both." 

At the time of his death Lieutenant Mosby was attached to the 
command of General G. C. Wharton, by whom he had been kindly 
sent home a few weeks previous to recruit his health. A call 
being made, however, for forces to repair to New Kiver Bridge to 
meet an expected raid of the enemy, he joined a company for the 
campaign, regardless of his enfeebled condition, and alas ! never 
returned. Stopping in Wytheville for a few days, after the com- 
mand was ordered back, he was taken suddenly ill on the evening 
of August 30th, '63, and died in a few hours of apoplexy. Thus, 
in the bloom and vigor of his years, when life offered none other 
than a bright pathway for his onward steps, — 

*' The angel pale 

Came at the midnight hour, 
And snatched him hence, and bore him wliere 

Nor storm nor cloud may lower. 
A5'e, snatched him in his youthful prime, 

From discord and from strife, 
Ere cruel thorns had sprung beside 

The frail, sweet flowers of life ; 
And bore him to that radiant land 

Where war and tumult cease, 
Where angels pure and souls redeem 

Wait round the Prince of Peace." 



l^cc3.] THE UXIVEKSIT^ MEMOKIAL, 4S9 

EICHARD CORBIN, 

Private, Co. B, 9th Virginia Cavalry. 

Richard Corbin was born at Laneville, King and Queen 
county, Virginia, December 1, 1833. With his brother, S. Well- 
ford Corbin, he entered the University in the fall of 1854, where 
by his genial disposition and pleasant address ho made many warm 
friends. At the close of the second session he left college, taking 
with him several distinctions and a diploma from the school of 
Chemistry. In September, 1857, he was married to Miss Roberta 
Cary, of Lewisburg, and about that time settled at " Moss Neck," 
a large landed estate in Caroline county given him by his father, 
James P. Corbin, Esq. Here he was devoting himself with un- 
tiring industry to the development of his property and the welfare 
and happiness of his slaves, when the tocsin of war was sounded. 

On the 25th of April, 1861, he enlisted as a private in Company 
B, 9tli Virginia Cavalry, and continued in that position until his 
death. He persistently refused office, often remarking that he 
" knew no more honorable position than that of a private in the 
Confederate States army ; " that there he was conscious he was doing 
his duty, and there he would remain until the end of the war, if 
God saw fit to spare him so long. Though a private, he was 
greatly beloved in the regiment. A steadfast advocate of military 
discipline, he sought to influence his comrades as much by example 
as by precept; and by his fidelity to his duties as a soldier he 
contributed no little to this end. Richard Corbin was with the 
cavalry in all the raids in Virginia, and fought gallantly at Ma- 
nassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Winchester, Brandy 
Station, and Gettysburg. 

After the second campaign in the Nortli, General Lee retired to 
Culpeper, and Longstreet's Corps was sent to aid Bragg in Ten- 
nessee. General Meade, then commanding the Army of the 
Potomac, learning that the Army of Northern Virginia was thus 
weakened, advanced his forces, and Lee accordingly retired to the 
stronger position behind the Rapidan. Stuart's cavalry was em- 
ployed to cover this movement. AVHicn about three miles from 
Culpeper Court-House, the 9th Vii'ginia was dismounted and de- 
ployed as a skirmish line, and unfortunately for Richard Corbix, 
he was posted within one hundred and fifty yards of the Federal 



490 the: UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [Septembei, 

battery which was shelling our troops, and immediately in front 
of it. The position was hotly contested by the enemy, and during 
the progress of the struggle Corbin was killed by a shell, which, 
exploding just in front of the skirmish line cut him almost in 
two. 

Appreciating his condition, he said to one of his comrades, 
"Broaddus, tell Pa I died at my post, with my face to the 
enemy." Then adding a few Avords for the comfort of the stricken 
ones at home, with a fervent prayer to God to provide for his 
eternal welfare, his brave spirit forsook its mangled tenement, and 
took its flight, let us hope, to a purer, happier realm. His remains 
were left on the field, and the Federals coming up within a short 
time after his death, forbade a humane woman and her little son 
of ten years to give " burial to the d — d rebel," as they pro- 
nounced his inanimate body. But during the following day, after 
they had passed on, these sad offices were performed for him by 
this charitable lady. Wrapped in his blanket, and without coffin 
or burial services, save the unspoken prayers of that patriot 
mother, he was laid in his temporary grave. The spot was not 
marked, lest it should be desecrated ; but in 1866 it was identified 
by the little boy, and the remains were removed to the family 
burying-ground at " Moss Neck." 

No purer, nobler man has been sacrificed to his country than 
Richard Corbin. He was as generous and kind in his social 
and domestic relations as he was faithful and devoted in his public 
duties. The veiy soul of patriotism and hospitality, he believed 
in making sacrifices for his country and his friends. After the 
battle of Fredericksburg the Southern army went into winter 
quarters, General Jackson's corps " stretching from the neighbor- 
hood of Guinea's Station towards Port Royal." Near the centre 
of his troops lay Moss Neck, the residence of Mr. Corbin, which 
was at once tendered by the owner to the General for his head- 
quarters. Declining the use of the mansion house, the latter es- 
tablished himself in the office on the edge of the lawn, and there 
spent the winter. During this period he manifested a very lively 
interest in Mr. Corbin, and became especially attached to his little 
daughter, Jane Wellford. " He requested of her mother," says 
Dr. Dabney, in his Life of Stonewall Jackson, " that she should 
visit him every afternoon after the labors of the day were finished, 
and he always provided himself with some j^resent suitable for 



1503.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 491 

her child's taste, which he laid away in his drawer — an apple, an 
orange, a bundle of candy, or a gay print. Sometimes the inter- 
view was passed with his little friend sitting upon his knee, en- 
gaged in eager converse, while at others the noises which proceeded 
from the office showed that they were engaged in a good hearty 
romp together. One evening when she came he had no gift for 
her. At the close of their play his eye fell upon a new cap which 
Mrs. Jackson had lately sent him, which was far plainer than that 
appropriate to a Lieutenant-General, but which still was encircled 
with one band of broad gold braid. Taking his penknife he 
ripped this off, and saying to the child, * This shall be your cor- 
onet,' fastened it with his own hand around her fair locks, and 
then stood contemplating her with delight. . . . This gift, the 
reader will say, Jane Corbin doubtless preserved with jealous care, 
to be the most cherished ornament of her womanhood. Alas ! no. 
The sweet child Avas destined to precede her hero friend to that 
world where they both wear a purer crown ; and the sad mother, 
now also a soldier's widow, guards it as the memorial of her be- 
reavement. The very day General Jackson left Moss Neck to 
prepare for the spring campaign, little Jane was seized with that 
fearful scourge of the innocents, scarlet fever, and expired after a 
sickness of a day. The General felt her loss with a pungent 
grief, but the sterner cares of the army forbade his expending 
time in the indulgence of sorrow. He left his quarters for the 
last time, cumbered with the thousand wants of his great command, 
while the child lay dying." Mr. Corbin was tenderly devoted to 
his little daughter, and her sudden death saddened his life. Little 
did he reckon that she was anticipating her father and her "hero 
friend " by so brief a period. In less than two months the great 
Captain had "crossed over the river;" scarce* four more moons 
had waned ere the faithful private soldier followed him. Let us 
think of the three as now reunited, walking together by the 
Tree of Ijife, rejoicing evermore in the face of Him who is "alto- 
gether lovely." 

By the members of the 0th Virginia Cavalry — than whom 
none knew better how to appreciate the genuine qualities of a 
soldier, because none served their country with more fidelity or 
efficiency — Dick Corbin's name will not be allowed to perish. 
AVithout losing their honor, they liave laid down their battered 
swords and put off the insignia of war. With the magnanimity 



492 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [October, 

of brave men they have rendered fealty to tne Government they so 
long defied ; and with a dignity that graces human nature, they 
have betaken themselves to the arts of peace ; but they have not 
forgotten, they will not forget, their struggles in the great canvass 
for constitutional liberty. They will cherish with brotherly af- 
fection the memories of their veteran dead; and even after many 
years they will grow young again, as now and then to the children 
who meanwhile have gathered about their hearthstones, they tell 
of their virtues, their chivalrous bearing, and their . nervous 
blows for the honor of Virginia and the South. Then will the 
name of Dick Corbin be mentioned with genuine pride, and the 
old soldier's face will glow with the fire of youth as he .recounts 
briefly the story of his military career. Perhaps he will picture 
him as he came first to the camp, buoyant and. hopeful, mounted 
on his sinewy steed, " Red Bird," and followed by his faithful 
man-servant. Bill; if so, he will not fail to tell how.:Red, Bird, 
after many a gallant tramp and charge, was at length captured 
and turned against her rightful owner; nor how Bill, shaming his 
master's enemies by his long faithfulness, was afterwards taken 
from him by death. ' Perhaps with lower tones, as he looks upon 
his own children, he will tell about Jane Corbin, and how the 
shadow of her little grave seemed to rest upon her father's face, 
until death, ploughing through his vitals at Culpeper, claimed him 
too. And then, with his eye turned towards the mother of his 
children, he will speak of that noble woman who came — came 
when friends and foes alike were gone — to perform for him that 
sublime charity which, honoring the dead soldier far beyond the 
power of muffled drum or martial salute, made her sister to those 
heroic matrons who gave burial to Latane and Hull. 



JOHN A. NELSON, 

Surgeon, 2d Vh-ginia Cavalry. 



John Alexander Nelson was born in Campbell county, Vir- 
ginia, on the 3d day of January, 1836, and was a twin-brother 
of the late Captain Hugh Nelson, of Lynchburg, whose death in 
that city soon after the war was the occasion of so much sorrow 
and regret to a large circle of friends and relatives. 



ISfiS.] 



THE UXIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 493 



Their father, Dr. Thomas H. Nelson, of Bedford, was a son of 
the late Judge Hugh Nelson, of Albemarle, and a grandson of the 
lamented General Nelson, of Revolutionary memory, and was no 
less distinguished in the community in which he lived for his 
excellent moral worth than for his skill and success in his profes- 
sion. He was spoken of by the late Rev. Wm. H. Kinckle, who 
knew him and who assisted at his funeral obsequies, as " the 
beloved physician," a title recognized by all present as singularly 
appropriate and deserved. His son, John A. Nelson, the subject 
of our sketch, was in all respects a worthy scion of this most noble 
stock. Brave, disinterested, fearless, full of the ardor and hopes 
of youth, inheriting by a long line of distinguished ancestry that 
pure and lofty patriotism which the history of Virginia has proved 
to be eminently characteristic of the name he bore, he stood promi- 
nent among the young men of his State who rushed to her pro- 
tection and standard when the earliest invaders made their foot- 
prints upon her soil. 

His early education was conducted at the High School near 
Alexandria, then under the able supervision of Rev. Mr. Maguire. 
In 1854 he attended the University of Virginia in company Avith 
his twin-brother, his devotion to whom through life formed one 
of the most striking features in his disposition. From the Uni- 
versity he went to Philadelphia and attended the Jefferson Medical 
School, where he graduated in '57. He was afterwards assigned 
a position in Blockley Hospital, where he remained about a year, 
and then returning to Virginia, located at Campbell Court-House. 
Here he entered upon a successful practice, which continued until 
his father's declining health made it necessary for him to remove 
to his home in Bedford, where he remained until the breaking out 
of the war. Thousrh en2;ao;ed at this time <it the bedside of a 
beloved and, indeed, dying parent, he no sooner heard the call for 
volunteers than he conferred with his father, and accepting his 
patriotic response, " Your country first, my son," enlisted as a 
private in the 2d Virginia Cavalry, in which position he served 
faithfully, shrinking from no hardship and shunning no duty 
which fell to his soldier lot. How painful tliat duty was, under 
the circumstances, how often and how tenderly his heart wandered 
back to the sick-bed at home, no mortal can tell ; but this we know, 
that when the sad tidings followed him, alas ! too soon, that his 
beloved father was no more, he faltered not for an instant, but 



494 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOBIAL. 



[October, 



gathering new energy from the remembered counsels of that ex- 
cellent sire, he became more and more ardently and earnestly- 
interested in the cause of Southern independence. Never did a 
young heart in the face of danger evince greater coolness, daring, 
and intrepidity than did his. And for this testimony to his sol- 
dierly bearing we are indebted not only to commanding officers, 
but to those brave and gallant comrades who stood with him on 
many a field of death, and who shared with him the dangers of 
battle and the privations and hardships of camp. But all this 
while those who knew him as a physician felt that his talents and 
skill entitled him to a diSerent sphere of duty, and representations 
to this effect were made before the authorities at Richmond. The 
result was a call before the examining board and a commission as 
Assistant Surgeon. He was assigned to duty with Dr. A. R. 
Meem, then Post-Surgeon at Mt. Jackson, Shenandoah county, 
Virginia, where he remained until the demonstrations of the 
enemy in the Upper Valley made it necessary to remove the sick 
to Harrisonburg, to which place he likewise followed. How far 
his characteristic unselfishness of disposition, his untiring energy, 
and unwearied devotion to duty had endeared him to his hospital 
associates, may be best understood from the fact that when the 
Department at Richmond ordered him to the field, numerous 
letters were despatched at once from his superiors, begging that he 
be retained in hospital service. The reply of the Medical Director 
to a communication of this sort from Dr. Meem, was itself a beau- 
tiful comment upon the appreciation in which he was held. After 
setting forth his reasons for refusing to revoke the order, he says, 
" While we regret that you should lose from the hospital so popular 
and efficient an officer, we cannot disregard the fact that the field 
needs j ust such surgeons." 

Soon again with his old regiment, though in the higher and far 
more responsible capacity of Surgeon, he devoted himself to his 
duties with a kindness and sympathy of manner, an energy and 
promptness of action, and unselfishness of spirit which won for him 
the growing confidence, love, and admiration of all with whom he 
associated. Indeed, this unaffected forgetfulness of self in his 
sympathy and interest for others, was a prominent and beautiful 
trait in his character, and one which prompted him at last, despite 
the protection thrown around him by his office, to share the fate 
of his companions and rush to the engagement which terminated 



2SC3.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 405 



his life. He fell mortally wounded in a volunteer charge at Rac- 
coon's Ford, Culpeper county, Virginia, on Sunday morning, lltli 
of October, 1863, and expired the day following at 4 o'clock P. M., 
in the twenty-eighth year of his age. His sufferings during the 
brief hours that preceded death wefe intensely great, yet he realized 
the full emergency of his fate, and died as he had lived, a noble 
embodiment of dauntless courage and manly excellence. 

Thus perished, in the hey-day of life's bright promise and 
golden hope, a true and worthy son of our mother Virginia, who 
in the making up of her jewels will exhibit no name more worthy 
of honor or more conspicuous for modest worth and virtue than 
that of John Alexander Nelson. 

A quiet grave, in a lonely forest churchyard in the county of 
Bedford, marks his resting-place. To this simple mound of earth 
patriot and friend may point, and dropping a tear of tender regret, 
say truly, "Here lies one who to his country was faithful, firm, 
self-sacrificing; to his friends, gentle, loving, and true." 

It was after a visit to this grave in the autumn of '65 that the 
author of this memoir wrote the following lines, which may be not 
inappropriate to its close : — 

THE FOREST GRAVE. 

I know a spot, a lonely spot 

Where autumn winds are sighing, 
And where upon the withered sod 

The drifted leaves are lying ; 
Where busy insects lately hummed, 

And summer birds were singing, 
As through the air the butterfly 

Its gladsome way was winging. 

The wild-wood violet blossomed there, 

Its tender smile unheeded, ' 

And clinging vines their shelter gave, 

Alas ! no longer needed ; 
But now no joyous note is heard 

The solemn stillness breaking, 
Low wliispering winds a dirge instead 

Seem for the lost one making. 

He slumbers there, for whom we wept 

With yearning hearts and broken. 
When in the dust we laid him down. 

Our deep, dumb grief unspoken. 
All full of hope we sent liim forth. 

No joy had love denied him ; 
Ah ! soon they brought him back to us, 

A broken sword beside him. 



496 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 

'Twas hard to look upon liis face 

In its calm, marble beautj% 
And feel that resignation now 

Was but our simple duty. 
Alas ! with quivering- lip and pale 

We tell the mournful story 
Of how he fought and bravely fell 

Upon the field of glory. 

Ah ! God knew best ; for him we mourn 

Remains no bitter token, 
The while we tread Hie 3 altered paths, 

With chastened hearts and broken. 
But we will mingle praise with praj'er 

To Him who ever liveth. 
That after toil, sleep, blessed sleep, 

To His beloved He giveth. 



[October. 



WILLIAM B. NEWTON, 

Captain, Company G, and acting Colonel, 4th Virginia Cavalry. 

William Brokenbeough Newtox was born in the city of 
Richmond, on the 15th of April, 1832, at the house of his mater- 
nal grandfather, the late Judge William Brokenbrough, of the 
Court of Appeals, while his father, the Hon. Willoughl)y Newton, 
w^as attending the session of the Legislature as delegate from the 
county of Westmoreland. In a volume of this kind, in which 
the articles are necessarily limited, it would be a difficult task to 
portray the character and talents of this gifted young man in a 
manner that would be most grateful to his many devoted friends, 
or a fitting tribute to the memory of one of the most gallant, 
chivalrous, and accomplished spirits ever sacrificed on the shrine 
of his country's liberties. An elaborate sketch of his life, and 
the many interesting incidents of his brief but brilliant career in 
the forum, before the people, and in the field, would occupy many 
more pages than could be expected at the hands of the publisher. 
It would be pardonable in the writer, who knew the subject of this 
memoir from his earlipst childhood to the moment of the 11th day 
of October, 1863, when his life was yielded for the cause he loved, 
if feeling were to give impulse to his pen. He will endeavor, 
however, to confine himself strictly wathin the pale of truth and 
accuracy, knowing that nothing could be more inconsonant with 



1SC3J 



Tl-IE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 497 



the modest and unassuming character of the man of whom he 
writes than what approaches extravagance in his praise. 

From earliest childhood he was remarkable for a gentleness and 
amiability of temper that endeared him to his family and school- 
mates ; and combining a taste for study and devotion to books 
which seemed to be a part of his nature, with a habitual deference 
for all legitimate authority, he was equally a favorite with his 
teachers. Without essaying to be a model boy — for under that J 
gentle manner was a high spirit when the occasion called for it — i 
nature seemed to have given him an unusual balance of character 
and temper, combined with activity and strength of mind. This, 
witii the example and training of Christian parents, was an earnest 
of the future usefulness and probable distinction of the man. Till 
his sixteenth year he was educated by private teachers under the 
sacred influences of a well-ordered home. In the fall of 1848 he 
was placed at the Episcopal High School near Alexandria. Here 
he remained two years, gaining each session the highest distinction 
in his classes and the medal at the termination of the second 
year. 

He entered the University in October, 1850, and took at once 
a high position for character and talents among Professors and 
students. A strong attachment sprung up between himself and 
several of the students, who afterwards vindicated together, by 
action on the battle-field, the sacred principles of constitutional 
liberty bequeathed to Virginia by its founders; and their names 
occupy kindred places on this sad but glorious record of the sons 
of the University who sealed their devotion with their lives. Mr. 
Newtox remained at the University two years, graduating in 
Ancient and Modern Languages, Natural Philosophy, and Chem- 
istry, and taking the Law ticket during the second year. At the 
close of tlie session of 1852, he delivered the Valedictory Address 
before the Washington Society. 

It was the wish of his friends that he should return to the 
University the third year and take the degree of Master of 
Arts ; but an ardent desire to enter early upon the arena of life 
induced him to resume the study of law under his father's direc- 
tion immediately after leaving college. This was continued till 
the following February, when he was examined by the Judges of 
the Coiu't of Appeals at Richmond, and licensed, with the pledge 
that he would not go to the bar till after attaining his majority, 
32 



498 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. [October, 

The following May he went to the Westmoreland bar, and passed 
through his novitiate of a few months in a manner most creditable 
to himself and gratifying to his friends. 

In November he settled in Hanover and came to the bar, 
having been united in marriage on the 15th of the month with 
Miss Mary M. Page, the only daughter of Mrs. L. A. Page of 
that county. From the outset of his career in Hanover, crowded 
as was its bar at the time with some of the best leral talent of 
the State, he took a high position, and had in a few months ac- 
quired, in spite of his youth, not only a high reputation for talent 
and legal acquirements among his professional brethren and the 
people, but was gaining an unusual share of the profits of his 
profession. In all his efforts at the bar he displayed legal acumen, 
and when the occasion called for it, an eloquence of the highest 
order, combined with a faultless taste, and a force, clearness and 
elegance of diction that could not well be excelled. Full of wit 
and the richest humor, he was at times brilliant in satire, and 
could wield the blade of Saladin, but in a style that never 
wounded his adversary. In his argument he was terse, pungent, 
and logical, showing the most accurate study and acquaintance 
with the subject, ready in illustration, and prompt without being 
tedious in his references. In person, -when warmed by debate, he 
was very striking, with a commanding physique, an interesting 
face, which bore the blended impression of truth, sincerity, and 
genius, and a fine black eye that literally flashed with expression ; his 
manner was animated, graceful, and easy ; and these traits of the 
orator were not a little enhanced in their effect by a deep-toned, 
rich, and well modulated voice. In a large and populous county, 
some fifty miles in length, and with a great diversity of interests, 
he had in twelve months acquired an unprecedented popularity; 
he seemed as it were to have taken the affections of the people by 
storm, and that without regard to party or social condition, for 
literally none " named him but to praise." It was, too, the only 
kind o^ popularity that is permanent or worth having, that founded 
on purity of morals combined with intellect, strength of charac- 
ter, and goodness of heart. Its effect on tlie character of a young 
man of twenty-three years might have given his friends some so- 
licitude, for he seemed in danger of incurring the "woe " of our 
Saviour, " when all men shall speak well of you." It would have 
been dangerous to a man of less strength of mind and firmness of 



1,63.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 499 

principle, but on Newton's character popular applause seemed to 
make as little impression as the ocean spray on its rock-bound 
coast ; for whether in the court-room, amid the plaudits of the 
crowd, at a political gathering, or in the densely packed throng of 
the legislative hall at Kichmond, he was ever the same unassum- 
ing " child in meek simplicity." 

We must pass rapidly in review the events of the next few 
years of his life, till his election to the Legislature in the spring of 
'59. During this period he was frequently before the i^eople as a 
democratic speaker in the canvass in which Mr. Wise was elected 
Governor, as assistant elector in the Presidential election of 185G 
and '60, and in the gubernatorial canvass in which Governor 
Letcher was elected. Suffice it to say that, in the opinion of all 
who heard him in the country and district, he had no superior 
in power before the people ; in every part of the county and dis- 
trict he represented the democratic party with great spirit and 
ability. In the spring of 1859 he was nominated for the Legisla- 
ture by the democratic party ; and, as another evidence of his ex- 
traordinary popularity, it may be mentioned that in this county, 
"where parties had always been closely divided, all opposition was 
withdrawn, and he was elected without a dissenting vote. He 
had now attained his tAventy-seventh year, and was the delegate 
elect from the county where he had arrived a stranger some five 
years and a half previously. 

During the jieriod just mentioned, Mr. Newton had not con- 
fined himself to the duties of his profession, his agricultural 
interests, or his jiolitical engagements, but was devoting all his 
leisure to general literature, and had been an occasional contribu- 
tor to periodicals and the Richmond papers, wielding a fertile 
and nervous pen. Among his articles may be mentioned his 
Thoughts on Social Philosojjhy, in which the profound and philo- 
sophical order of his mind is shown ; an elegant and elaborately 
written review of Cralle's Life of Calhoun, which occupied several 
columns in successive copies of the Examiner ; a review of Ran- 
dall's Life of Jefferson, and a series of articles, signed " Yirginius," 
on the great issues of the day, addressed to John Minor Botts. It 
is to be regretted that our contracted limits preclude the introduc- 
tion into this memoir of some extracts from these articles now 
before us, illustrating the character of his mind. They are all 
admirably written, and we know not which most to admire, the 



500 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. [October, 

logical precision of his arguments or the grace, ease, and classical 
beauty of his style. AYe have never seen anything from his pen 
that was commonplace or an infringement of the canon of good 
taste. From liis address when a very young man, before the 
Young Ladies' Seminary at Ashland, to his great speech before 
the Legislature in tlie called session of 1861, tliere is not a word 
which you could wish erased, or a sentence of which the most 
fastidious critic could complain. He entered the Legislature in 
December, '59, with his reputation established as being the most 
brilliant and rising young man of the day, and well did he sus- 
tain it. Without being often heard, he always spoke well to the 
point. In the month of February, under a resolution of the 
House, a committee was appointed to inquire into the expediency 
of adopting such action " as may be necessary to encourage a 
direct trade between Virginia and foreign ports." Newton was 
placed on this committee, associated with three of the oldest and 
most experienced gentlemen of the House. Tl)e report, written 
by Newton and adopted by the committee, is before us, and was 
commented on by the papers of the day for its force and lucidity. 
The time had now come when all were looking with apprehen- 
sion to the threatening cloud on the Northern horizon. The John 
Brown raid had recently occurred, and the true men of Virginia 
began to reflect whether it was not prudent from this "nettle 
danger, to pluck the flower safety." The animus of a large 
number of the Northern people was not to be mistaken ; societies 
and combinations had been formed, from the troublesome " Athens" 
of America in the East to Chicago in the West — from New York 
to Washington — composed of men of wealth and talent, who sub- 
scribed large sums of money. In the language of a leading New 
York paper of that day, " The South was to be throttled and the 
negroes freed." Such men as Thurlow Weed, Greeley, Governor 
Morgan, Judge Peabody, Dudley Field, Cassius Clay, Gerritt 
Smith, and others, were united for the coming campaign ; the 
Abolitionists and Republicans had combined, and the famous and 
yet infamous work of Hinton Kowan Helper, of North Carolina, 
entitled, The Impending Crisis of the South: Hoio to 3Ieet It, 
was to be everywhere circulated by subscription. The election 
of the sectional candidate for the Presidency was a foregone con- 
clusion. Was there nothing alarming in all this to a true Vir- 
ginian of that day ? Let Virginians of this unhappy period who 



1863.] THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOKIAL. 501 

condemn as rash and ill-advised the action of the men of '59 and 
'60, look back to the records of the day, and, remembering that 
there is no such thing as foreknowledge, blush as countrymen of 
Henry, Mason, Wythe, and Washington, before giving a negative 
answer ! 

In view of the threatening posture of affairs, early in January 
a proposition was made in the House to arm the State. The bill 
reported from the Military Committee recommended an appro- 
priation of $500,000 for this purpose. Mr. Boreman, of Wood 
county, offered an amendment to reduce the expenditure. When 
the question for tlie adoption of the amendment came up, Mr. 
Newton made a thrilling speech in opposition that enhanced the 
already high reputation he had gained. In regard to it, lest the 
writer should render himself obnoxious to the charge of extrava- 
gance in his estimate of its power and eloquence, he prefers quoting 
some contemporary notices. The Exaniiner of January 17th, 1860, 
says : — " We make no apology for the space given to-day to the 
speech of Mr. Newtox, the accomplished and gifted representa- 
tive from Hanover county. The speech is owq o^ great ability, 
and we commend it to the consideration of the people of Virginia." 
The Gainesville (Alabama) Independent of January 28th, 1860, 
under the caption, " A JNlodel Speech," says : — " 'Tis but seldom 
we read speeches published in newspapers — unless, forsooth, they 
have for us a peculiar interest, such as an acquaintance with the 
speaker or an admiration for his talents; but' we have just de- 
parted from our custom by carefully perusing one made in the 
Legislature of Virginia by Mr. Newton, of Hanover. As the 
subject is one of vital interest, not only to Virginia, but to Alabama 
and every other Southern State, we feel that every man in our sec- 
tion of the country who has its prosperity at 'heart should read it 
in the Richmond Examiner of January 17th. The movement 
, made in the Virginia Legislature, and upon which this unsurpassed 
speech was made, is one of vast importance, and should be imitated 
by every State south of Mason and Dixon's Line. In the indig- 
nant language of Mr. Newton, ' You must arm, you must 
organize; and when thus armed, thus organized, you cannot — 
you will not — in God's name, you dare not — imitate the folly 
of the timid traveller, who, seeing the glaring eyes and glittering 
teeth of the tiger springing to his prey, delays the fatal shot till 
he is felled to the earth by his terrible foe.' Various schemes seem 



502 TPIE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [October, 

feasible to eifect this object, but none as much as the one proposed 
by Mr. Newton. Listen further to his words of inspiration : — 
* Wliile one school is clamorous for the intervention of the fnggot, 
the pike, and the rifle, the other, more moderate in its tone if not 
more vindictive in its temper, suggests schemes quite as efficacious, 
though not so startling to the moral sense of mankind. Encircle 
the Slave States with a wall of living fire ; prohibit the transpor- 
tation of slaves from one State to another; extinguish the servile 
relation in the District of Columbia, the dock-yards and arsenals ; 
reform the judiciary ; purify the executive — in a word, throw the 
immense power of the Federal Government in the scale against 
this doomed institution, till the South, finding it a cloak for her 
weakness and not a covering for her defence, shall be compelled 
to abandon the system, or permit it, like the ill-fated tunic of the 
Grecian demi-god, to drive its subtle poison through all the arteries 
of its social life. These are some of the peaceable means by which 
modern philanthropists aim to accomplish all the ends of abolition. 
Here, then, on one hand is a clearly-defined object ; on the other, 
a party powerful in numbers, defiant in temper — willing converts 
to the doctrine of an irresistible antagonism between the obstacle 
in its path and a perpetuation of its own rule; blind worshippers 
at the shrine of an idolatry which teaches that there is an obliga- 
tion more sacred than the pledges of a written Constitution ; 
standing within easy reach of the sceptre which completes the 
insignia of its power. And here. Sir, I might pause and claim 
that the argument is finished.' AVith regret we leave this mas- 
terly effort of the young member from Hanover, and hope and 
expect to hear from him in a more extended field of labor. Let 
Alabama, then, follow the example of her sister State. Mr. 
Newton is not an acquaintance of ours, but we can admire talent, 
come from what source it may. We close by giving his last beau- 
tiful remarks, and commend him to the future as a bright and 
risinp- star : — ' Virginians, let us not disgrace this noble heritage. 
The hopes of patriotism are with us, the eyes of history are upon 
us. With hearts prepared for either fate, let us await the event 
without waiting the opportunity ; and when the hour for action 
comes, if come it must, Virginia, true to the instincts of her gen- 
erous nature, true to the traditions of her noble history, shall lead 
the triumphal march of Southern independence, or leave here, 
upon the very spot upon which the spirit of Revolutionary freedom 



13(53.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 503 

y 

once raised its infant voice, some new TiierniopylsD, to bear the 
stainless record of a gallant people, who, when abandoned by for- 
tune, yet vanquished disgrace ; though deserted by the genius of 
the public liberty, preserved unharmed the shrine of the public 
honor.' " 

At the close of the session Mr. Newton returned to his farm 
and the practice of his profession, and was not called to the field 
again till the fall, when he acted as assistant democratic elector for 
the district. The election of Mr. Lincoln, on the 6th of Novem- 
ber, filled the minds of the ])eople with anxiety ; his election by 
an entirely sectional vote, and the foreshadowing of his policy by 
the published "platform" of the convention which nominated 
him, brought conviction to all minds that the crisis long foretold 
by Southern statesmen was at hand, and the naked question would 
soon be, unqualified submission on the one hand, and throwing 
ourselves on the mercy of our avowed enemies, or separation and 
probable war. Meetings were held in Hanover, us well as every 
other county of the State; and it is not strange that a people, 
brought up with a reverence for chartered rights, and where the 
sparks from Henry's genius had kindled the flame of the first 
revolution, should have advocated resistance and separation in the 
event of the failure of the 2)roposed compromises. In one of these 
meetings, the largest perhaps ever held in the county, in which the 
historical old Court-house, Avhose Avails had reechoed in the days 
of '76 the voices of the patriots of that day, was thronged to its 
utmost capacity, Newton held the crowd spell-bound for two 
hours by a strain of impassioned eloquence, the impression of which 
can never be erased from our memory. 

The Legislature was called together in January, and important 
events followed each other in rapid succession; South Carolina 
had seceded, her commissioner was in Richmond, and so far from 
any spirit of compromise and conciliation being shown by the 
people of the North, scarcely a day passed without some new ex- 
hibition of their uncompromising and arrogant tone. Vermont 
spurns all concession ; Ohio refuses conciliation ; Pennsylvania 
rejects all offers of peace ; and New York adds insult to injury 
by sending from Governor Morgan to Governor Letcher and the 
Virginia Legislature the tender of men and money to the Presi- 
dent of the United States to murder Southern citizens and ravage 
Southern States ; the zealous efforts of Crittenden, Douglas, Hun- 



504 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [October, 

ter, Boteler, Cochrane, and Millson, had all failed in Congress, and 
the remote contingency of the successful issue of the " Peace Con- 
vention," to which "Virginia had sent commissioners, and which 
was to meet on the fourth of February at Washington, presented 
the only hope for peace. Every possible disposition was shown by 
Virginia for conciliation and compromise; and if the haughty in- 
solence of the North could have restrained itself r<t this time, and 
the mad counsels of the extreme and violent leaders of the Re- 
publican party been kept in abeyance, the terrible consequences 
would have been prevented. But the North, with an overweening 
confidence in its own strength, had conceived the absurd notion 
that the Southern people had become effeminate under the influ- 
ence of slavery, and that the blood of its great men of a former 
day had become effete after coursing so long through the veins of 
slaveholders. Hence they were told by their papers that the re- 
bellion was to be crushed in sixty days, or at the most, in ninety 
days. On Monday, January 28th, Mr. Newtox made the great 
speech of his life, upon the amendment offered by him to "the 
report of the Committee on Federal Relations." The occasion 
and his reputation had drawn together an immense crowd ; the 
commissioners and many other gentlemen were present from South 
Carolina ; the galleries were crowded ; the occasion was an exciting 
and momentous one, and rarely has a young orator received such 
a rapt and absorbed attention of such an upturned sea of heads, 
and with a silence so profound. We could only do justice to it 
by free quotations, and these we have no space to give. Mr. 
Meraminger, the commissioner from South Carolina, told a friend 
of ours that in his judgment it was one of the finest efforts he had 
ever heard, and he had heard Hayne, McDuffie, Preston, and 
others, in their palmiest days. 

But we must glide rapidly along with the current of events. A 
convention of the people of Virginia M'as called, and the 4th of 
February set apart for the election — the same day the Commis- 
sioners from Virginia met the Commissioners from North Caro- 
lina, Maryland, Kentucky, and other States, in the famous " Peace 
Convention," where the efforts of the high-minded and dignified 
Southern gentlemen assembled there were practically derided and 
laughed to scorn. Six of the Southern States had now followed 
South Carolina out of the Union. The Virginia Convention, 
though opposed for a long time to secession, was committed from 



1.C3.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 505 

the beginning against tlie coercion of a sovereign State by force 
of arras. The attempt to reinforce Fort Snmpter, its bombard- 
ment and capture by the South Carolinians in April, and this 
soon followed by Mr. Lincoln's proclamation and call for seventy- 
five thousand men, produced, as a necessary consequence, the 
almost uiianimous severance by the Convention of Virginia from 
the Federal Union. Richmond not long after was to be the 
capital of tlie Soutliern Confederacy, and Virginia to become the 
principal centre and battle-ground of the war. Virginia seceded 
on the 17th of April, and the fact was announced by a committee 
sent by the State Convention to a convention of the people as- 
sembled at Metropolitan Hall, producing a profound sensation of 
solemnity becoming the gravity of the occasion, and of relief and 
joy that under the menaces of Northern insolence and the distant 
rauttcrings of Federal cannon, Virginia refused to take counsel 
of her fears. For after trying all expedients for peace to the 
furthest verge of honor, she had marched into line for the defence 
of those principles which had been so distinctly enunciated by her 
on the adoption of the Constitution in '87. It was a memorable 
day ; but while its recollection brings sadness to the heart, it leaves 
no tinge of shame on the cheek. On that night, as the writer 
■was wending his way up the almost deserted streets of the city 
destined to be the " Richmond on the James " of many a future 
song and story, the quiet stillness of the night was only broken 
by the mufrled note of preparation above his head as he passed 
the military and other public halls, where the dull thud of the 
musket on the floor and the solemn and deep-toned "Order 
arms!" "Shoulder arms!" was heard. It was indeed signifi- 
cant; for some of the young heroes who fell on Malvern Hill 
and Gettysburg were going through the elements of a soldier's 
training. 

The next day the Hanover company of cavalry, of which 
Neavtox was 1st Lieutenant and Williams C. Wickham Captain, 
was offered for service and accepted by the Governor. By the 
10th of May the company was at the camp of instruction at Ash- 
land, with many others, undergoing cavalry drill, and on the 
27th they were ordered to Centreville, and were constantly in 
service to the end of the war. They were near at hand when the 
first blood of the war Avas shed at Fairfax Court House, when a 
company of Federal cavalry made an unexpected dash, and Cap- 



50G THE UiS"JVEKSITY MEMOIUAL. [October, 

tain Marr, of the "VVarrenton Rifles, was killed. The Hanover 
company arrived in time to pursne the retreating troopers. The 
company was next a participant in the Vienna skirmish, in which 
a Confederate reconnoitering party, commanded by Colonel Maxcy 
Gregg, caused the famous General Schenck to gain his equivocal 
laurels for the most raj^id, if not the most masterly retreat of the 
war. The company was engaged in the heavy skirmish at Bull 
Run on the ISlh (Thursday) of July — the Quatre Bras of the sub- 
sequent battle of Manassas. It was held in reserve on the famous 
21st of July, with many other disjointed companies, and did noble 
service when ordered up to attack the retreating columns of the 
enemy. In tliese attacks it lost its gallant 2d Lieutenant Bowles, 
the brave Sergeant Edmund Fontaine, and a noble private Avhose 
name we regret not to be able to recall. 

This battle, which excited such an intense interest at the time, 
was described so graphically and with so much spirit by Newton 
in a letter to his wife, that a friend begged leave to copy it for the 
Richmond papers. It was accordingly published, not only in 
Richmond, but appeared in all the prominent papers of the South. 
The cavalry was organized into regiments on the 15th of Septem- 
ber, and the Hanover company became Company G of the 4th 
Regiment. Captain Wickhani became Lieutenant-Colonel, Lieu- 
tenant Beverly Robinson, of the old army. Colonel, and Newton 
the Captain of Company G. The regiment was incorporated in 
Stuart's brigade, and remained doing heavy picket duty with 
General Johnston's army till his evacuation of Manassas and 
march to the peninsula. During this time nothing of especial 
interest occurred in the cavalry command. The 4th Regiment 
was not engaged at Ball's Bluff or Dranesville, though at the 
last-mentioned heavy fight Newton's heart was saddened by the 
death of his maternal first cousin, bearing the same Christian 
name, the gallant AV^illiam B. Phelps, formerly of Virginia and 
latterly of Covington, Kentucky, while serving as a private in the 
1st Kentucky Regiment. The memorable evacuation and march to 
the peninsula took place in April, 1862. Tiie re-enlistment of the 
twelve months' men for the war having taken place a short time 
before leaving Manassas, the delicate task of re-electing company 
and field officers had to be made while the regiment was in the 
presence of the enemy. Here Newton's nobleness of soul and 
the disinterested, unselfish nature of his patriotism came out ia 



IS,;:;] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 507 

bold relief. To quote the communication of a gallant comrade, then 
the Major of the regiment, and the Brigadier-General at the close 
of the war, — " In the spring of 1862, when intrigue was in danger 
of disorganizing the regiment, when the army was on the verge 
of mutiny, regiments disbanding, electioneering raging in every 
quarter — my noble friend might have been tempted, like many 
others, to advance his rank by the votes of his comrades. He was 
the most popular man in his regiment, and could certainly have 
supplanted his field-officers ; and yet (I speak from personal know- 
ledge, for our feelings and thoughts were in common) he put aside 
every temptation for the good of the cause, and, as an example to 
others, refused any promotion except such as came from the battle- 
field. He was by far the truest, the most gallant, and most gifted 
man that it was my fortune to know from the beginning to the 
end of the war. When disabled by wounds myself, and as it was 
thought, permanently, I felt that it was nnjust to my noble com- 
rade to bar the path to promotion. Newton would have been 
immediately advanced by my retiring. I consulted him, and 
putting a case hypothetically, told him of an officer who was 
supposed to be disabled from command in a regiment, but who 
could perform staif duty and had an offer of an appointment. 
Newton cut me short by penetrating the disguise, and refusing, 
in his unselfish and soldierly instinct, to sanction any such act on 
my part." 

On May 3d, while Newton's company was stationed at 
" Blow's Mill," Yoi'k county, about five miles from Yorktown, he 
was ordered to take position on the Williamsburg road till the 
rear of the column of our retreating army had passed. The 
fourth regiment was then ordered to cover the rear of the army. 
The enemy pressing on with energy as it approached AVilliams- 
burg, the 4th Regiment was forced into the open plain in front 
of the town before the rear of our infantry left it. To arrest 
them at once was an absolute necessity in this emergency, for the 
infantry might have been caught on the reverse side of our works. 
The 4th dashed at tliem under cover of the Richmond Howitz- 
ers, and drove them into the woods. The regiment then divided 
into two squadrons; one commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Wick- 
ham, and the other by IMajor William Payne, moved forward on 
parallel roads. Wickham's column encountered the enemy, was 
driven back, lost one of its Virginia colors, and liad its com- 



508 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. [October, 

mander wounded. Payne's column receiving no notice of this 
reverse, continued its march till confronted by a formidable body 
of troops. Payne's command was about charging when a soldier 
rode out with a Virginia flag, and exclaimed, " Don't fire, we are 
friends." We now continue the narrative in the language of 
our gallant correspondent : — " Newton and I started forward to 
see; we had ridden but a few paces when our suspicions were 
aroused, and I reiterated the command to charge. Newton in 
his generous apprehension that they might possibly be friends, 
besired us to halt for a moment. In his utter fearlessness he 
galloped right into their ranks, which were instantly closed around 
him. The next day I was stretched myself on a bloody blanket, 
and this was the last I saw of my gallant friend for six months." 
Newton's diary of the incidents of his capture and confinement 
is the best sequel of his friend's narrative. Finding himself in the 
power of a heavy ambuscade, he halloed back to the squadron not 
to come on, and soon had the satis^faction of seeing the squadron 
retreatino- from what would have been the scene of their inevitable 
capture. He found in the woods into which he had been decoyed, 
besides the capturing party, two regiments of cavalry and two 
batteries of artillery in reserve. His diary, kept during the three 
months of his imprisonment, covers more than seventy pages of 
manuscript ; it is filled with matter of an intensely interesting 
nature, written with great vivacity and humor, and embraces the 
time from the period of his capture on the 3d of May to his re- 
lease from Fort Delaware the last of July. Without space for 
quotations, or giving any of the interesting particulars of his con- 
finement in his own graphic language, we are compelled to mention 
one incident, the only notable excejDtion to the generally proper 
treatment received by him. On May 8th, while Captain Conner 
of the " Jeff Davis Legion," and Captain Lee of the 32d Virginia 
Infantry were his fellow-prisoners at Yorktown, he received orders 
through Captain Revere, purporting to come from General 
McClellan, that the Confederate officers should next day superin- 
tend the privates, also prisoners, in removing all the torpedoes left 
by General Johnston at Yorktown. This order, in direct conflict 
with all the usages of civilized warfare, brought out an admirably 
written protest from Newton, representing himself and fellow- 
prisoners. In this paper they decline to superintend the removal 
of the torpedoes by the privates, but would take an equal share 



ISCl] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 509 



" with their brother soldiers " in the common danger. Tliis pro- 
test brought the comment from the Provost Captain, " Dam'd 
well written, but very stubborn." The removal continued for a 
day and then the order was revoked. 

In the first part of August, Newtox gladdened the hearts of 
his wife and little ones by his unexpected arrival at his home in 
Hanover. His joyous welcome had not grown cold, wiien true 
to his country he reported two days afterwards to his regiment at 
Hanover Court House. On taking command of his company he 
was welcomed in a manner as unexpected as it was gratifying and 
acceptable. The company was drawn up in line, and their Cap- 
tain requested to take a position on foot in front of them ; this 
done, a sergeant made his appearance leading a superb horse fully 
equipped, which was duly presented as a mark of their affection 
and esteem. Tlie day after this incident, the regiment was on its 
march to join General Lee. It was with the army during all the 
fights and hardships of this sev^ere campaign, the second battle of 
Manassas, at Sharpsburg, and in the cavalry raid through Mary- 
land, and subsequently in the series of skirmishes near Leesburg 
and Aldie, previous to the advance of Burnside, and afterwards 
on the line of the Rappahannock. It is not invidious to say that 
in all enterprises where daring and judgment were required he 
was the leading spirit of his regiment, had its perfect confidence, 
and to use the language of one of the officers who served with him 
to the day of his death, was the Chevalier Bayard of his division, 
" sans peur et sans reproche." We have no space to give the 
details of the numerous cavalry engagements in which We acted a • 
gallant and important part in '62, and the terrible campaign of 
'63. He was with General Stuart in the Pennsylvania campaign, 
and all the subsequent cavalry engagements after the retreat of 
General Lee's army, before and after the advance of Meade. Re- 
fusing to api)ly for promotion or to accept promotion in the 
regiment at the expense of wounded, disabled, or imprisoned 
brother officers, he was, in fact, for many months previous 
to his death the commander of the 4th Regiment without 
the pay or technical title of Colonel. How he deported him- 
self in action may be inferred by another extract from the com- 
munication on which we have before drawn. " I can never forget 
dear Newtox at Tvellyville. Averill crossed tlic Rappahannock 
with from 2500 to 3000 well equipped and well armed cavalry, 



510 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [October. 

accompanied with artillery, at daybreak. We had by the morn- 
ing's report only 794 fit for dnty; the 4th had been reduced to 
120. The fight was hot from the beginning, and almost entirely 
with the sabre. Newtox was preeminent everywhere — his com- 
pany at the head of the column and he at the head of that, 
attacking the enemy on one quarter, repelling them in another. 
Once in the agony of the combat we were ordered to attack a line 
at least four times as large as ours with a battery bearing on us. 
We attacked through an open field, every spot of whicli could 
have been pitted with a bullet. When within four hundred yards 
of the enemy we had to jJuU down a fence to get at them ; (strange 
as this may read, it is literally true). Newtox and Peter Fon- 
taine were at the head of the column. The men, inspired by 
Newtox's heroic example, dismounted, tore down the heavy fence 
in a trice, and rushed on the enemy with flashing sabres, when 
suddenly the batteries opened with canister, and I do not exagge- 
rate when I say actually shot away the head of the column, every 
horse struck. Lieutenant Harriss killed, Fontaine and many of the 
men badly wounded. Nothing daunted, Newtox cheered on the 
men, and I am proud to remember we were in a few moments in- 
terlaced with the enemy. I remember that in the thick of the 
fight, (and we were near enough to help each other, for it Mas 
purely a fight with steel,) Newtox's generous friendship thought 
of me and served me to good purpose. After a desperate combat, 
in which we drove the enemy, being entirely unsupported we 
were compelled to retire. Through the whole, Newtox was 
the animating spirit; two-thirds of his company were disabled, 
and amongst them I remember particularly the gallant Kimbrough 
and Oilman. But it was not alone as a soldier that I loved him. 
After such a fight as I have attempted to describe, we would lie 
awake half the night thinking of the dear ones at home and talk- 
ing poetry and sentiment. In the Gettysburg campaign, being 
again wounded and falling into the hands of the enemy, I never 
saw ray friend again, and the saddest news on my return was the 
story of his gallant death." 

Late in August, '63, Newtox obtained a short furlough and 
visited his home in Hanover. There were as many charms at 
that sweet home as ever welcomed back a weary soldier — a de- 
voted wife, three lovely children, fond relatives and warm friends, 
whose hearts were gladdened by his coming, enhanced by every 



18(i3.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 511 



domestic comfort tliat could add a zest to life. Without indulging 
in gloomy forebodings, the fine sensibilities of our friend, realizing 
the perilous service in which he was engaged, made him feel that 
he might never see his loved ones again, and cast a shade of 
thoughtful sadness on his bronzed and manly face. But nothing 
could woo so true a man from the rugged path of honor and duty, 
and in a few days we heard the lingering tramp of his horse's feet 
as he left the hallowed spot forever. 

In October, 1863, General Lee, while his army and Meade's 
confronted each other on the line of the Rapidan, conceived the 
idea of making a flank movement on the latter, " to get sufficiently 
between him and Washington, by means of concealed and wooded 
roads, as to stop him long enough" to bring him to an engage- 
ment. From various causes the flank movement was not suc- 
cessful in bringing Meade to a stand, but had only the effect of 
driving him farther back towards Washington. While making 
it. General Fitz Lee's Cavalry Division was left on the line of the 
Rapidan, with directions so to post his pickets as to leave Meade 
in ignorance of General Lee's movements. In this position Gen- 
eral Buford crossed the river with his cavalry early on the morn- 
ing of the 11th of October and made a fierce attack on Fitz Lee. 
He was quickly driven over the river again, but made a stand 
a short distance beyond its northern bank. He M-as quickly fol- 
lowed by Lee, " after ordering Loraax with his brigade to make 
a demonstration at * Raccoon Ford ' as if to force his way over. 
General Lee with Wickham's Brigade succeeded in crossing at an 
unfrequented ford higher up, and appeared on the flank of the 
Federal cavalry opposing Loraax." The enemy quickly dis- 
mounted a brigade of their cavalry, armed with the Spencer rifle, 
to oppose AV^ickham's brigade. We now quote as much of the 
communication of a gallant participant in the fight as our space 
will allow: — "The enemy's sharpshooters were strongly posted 
in our front ; tlieir flank nearest tlie river rested on a farm-house 
and outbuildings, and thence extended along a fence resting on 
the embankment of a ditch. The ground too between us 
was very much broken, and partly in woods and bushes. Clear- 
ly it was our policy to dismount and attempt to dislodge 
them with our carbines. General Fitz Lee thought otherwise, 
and ordered the 1st Virginia Cavalry to make the attack. 
This gallant regiment charged the line; but being met by a galling 



512 THE UInIVEESITY MEMoniAL. 



[October, 



fire, and finding it impossible to pass the obstacles of a fence and 
ditch, had to fall back. The 2d or 3d Regiment (I have forgotten 
which) was then ordered to charge, and did so Avith no better suc- 
cess, both regiments being sharply punished in the loss of men 
and horses. Finally the 4th Regiment, commanded by Captain 
Newton, was ordered to charge and break the line if possible. I 
have heard Colonel Randolph say that the attack was made 
against the judgment of Newton, and that he so expressed him- 
self to him during the conflict; but when he received his order, 
like a true and gallant soldier he placed himself at the head of 
his regiment and prepared to make the attack. 

" ' Some one had blundered : 
His not to make reply — 
His not to reason Avh)' — 
His but to do and die.' 

" Without a moment's hesitation Newton drew his sabre, gave 
the word to his men, and with impetuous courage spurred his 
horse upon the enemy. By his side rode Captain Williams, of 
the Prince AVilllam troop, and the brave Orderly Nash, of his own 
Hanover troop. The enemy seemed in a measure to have reserved 
their fire until Captain Newton and the front of the regiment 
were within a few feet of the ditch and fence, when a deadly and 
concentrated fire was poured in upon the head and both flanks of 
the regiment. The attack was made in columns of squadrons ; 
and the Federal line being much the longest, overlapped both of 
our flanks. The front rank went down ; Newton, Williams, 
Nash, and others with it : the fatality of the attack and severity 
of the fire threw the regiment into some confusion, and no officer 
urging it forward (at first Newton's fall was not known), it fell 
back in some disorder. At length the cry, * Newton is miss- 
ing!' passed down the column as the regiment was falling back, 
and dismay was depicted on each countenance. The regiment 
was brought to a halt, Captain Randolph having assumed com- 
mand, and it then became certainly known that Newton had 
fallen, eitiier killed or wounded. A universal desire seized the 
men to be led again to the attack to rescue their beloved com- 
mander if wounded, to avenge him if dead. The reiiiment was 
re-formed and again ordered to charge the enemy. I came to the 
front to command the squadron which Randolph relinquished. 
Usually in the heat of battle, death, no matter of whom, though 



1SG3.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOETAL. 513 



the dearest friend, is little heeded. Not so on this occasion. I 
believe that, throughout the whole regiment, so much had New- 
ton endeared himself to it, every thought and feeling was lost in 
the absorbing anxiety to know his fate. As I rode up the column 
I read grief in every countenance, and a fixed determination at all 
hazards and at every cost to recover our lost commander. For- 
tunately the enemy had abandoned their position, and without 
resistance the regiment rode rapidly up to the place where New- 
ton fell. He was found in a dying condition, a bullet having 
passed through his brain. He was taken up from the tall grass 
and bushes and borne to the rear insensible. I have never known 
in the army so profound a sensation to pervade a command : eyes 
long unused to weeping were filled, and the fountain of sorrow, 
well-nigh dried up in every breast, was unlocked ; rude hands 
that had for three years been unused to anything but the sabre 
and the pistol, took him up and handled him as tenderly as a 
mother would her infant. We laid a bloody hand upon the 
enemy in the after conflict of that evening, and the recollection of 
our beloved Newton lent an energy to every blade that gleamed 
on that unhaj^py day. I only regret that the lapse of time has 
effaced from recollection many incidents connected with that 
glorious soldier and noble gentleman. It was my good fortune 
to have known him well. I say good fortune, because no one 
could come in contact with so much elevation of character without 
being benefitted. He was the truest and best man I ever knew 
in my life. His heart, with all the tenderness of a woman, had 
the firmness of the hero when the occasion required it. He had 
the highest order of intellect, united with the most unselfish and 
purest character. As a soldier he was the nonpareil of his 
division. Had he been spared, I have no doubt he would have 
attained, as a soldier and as a civilian, the highest distinction." 

The morning tiiat the news of Newton's death reached Rich- 
mond, it was the occasion of the following special message to the 
Legislature from Governor Letcher : — " Gentlemen of the Senate 
and House of Delegates : Another young and gifted son of Vir- 
ginia has fallen in defending the honor of his native State. Prior 
to the opening ot the war Captain William B. Newton repre- 
sented the county of Hanover in the House of Delegates with 
distinguished ability, and his ])olitical career gave assurance of 
great future distinction. His conduct during the war has been 
33 



514 THE UIsIVERSITY ilEMOEIAL. [October 

marked by great gallantry, courage, and devotion to the cause. In 
private life lie was amiable, gentlemanly, and courteous. His 
character for honor, integrity, and virtue, public and jirivate, was 
irreproachable. When such men die, it is proper that their names 
and services should be held in grateful remembrance, that their 
virtues should be held up before the rising generation for emula- 
tion, and that their memories should be enshrined in the hearts of 
their countrymen." 

On the evening of the 12th of October, the honored remains of 
our soldier and patriot, under the care of two of his old company, 
were placed on the platform at Hanover Court House depot. A 
few of the neighbors and disabled soldiers had been called together 
by the expectation of its sad arrival. The lid of the pine coffin 
was removed, to gratify their natural wish to gaze once more on 
the face of one whom they had loved for himself, and whose char- 
acter they more than admired. His sudden and violent death had 
not disturbed the expression of that placid face, on which the lines 
of manly beauty yet lingered ; and the firm compression of his 
finely-chiseled lips alone bore evidence of his last gallant charge 
for the altars and firesides of his native land. A sad cortege 
attended him back to the home he had so lately left; and two days 
after, amid evidences of unaffected sorrow from all, his body was 
consigned by his beloved pastor to its quiet country grave. He 
and many others have thus passed away — fallen in defence of a 
"lost cause"; but if the cause has been ''lost," the eternal prin- 
ciple, older than the days of '76, has been vindicated, and *'is not 
dead, but sleepeth," and will never be " lost" as long as a love for 
chartered rights has a place in the Anglo-Saxon heart. Virginia 
may never raise her mailed hand again ; but to repeat the eloquent 
and prophetic language of Newtox, " When abandoned by for- 
tune, she yet vanquished disgrace ; though deserted by the genius 
of the public liberty, she preserved unharmed the shrine of the 
public honor." 



1803.] THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 515 

LOMAX TAYLOE, 

Adjutant, 2d Virginia Cavalry. 

It is not matter for surprise that the gaze of men shouhl bo 
mainly fixed on those fields where have been fought the great 
battles of history ; for a great battle, where thousands grapple in 
deadly strife, if the most horrible, is at the same time the snblimest 
and most fascinating spectacle that the world affords. But many 
times the richest abundance of the best and bravest blood of a 
State reddens a field not to be known in history but by casual 
mention, as the scene of some slight preliminary skirmish. This 
is singularly true of the locality known as the Raccoon Ford, on 
the Rapidan. There, on the 11th of October, 1863, in a cavalry 
fight, fell Dr. John Nelson, William B. Newton, and Lomax 
Tayloe, all Virginians, and all representatives of the most 
ancient and the best blood of the Commonwealth. 

Lomax Tayloe, son of G. P. and M. E. Tayloe, of Roanoke 
county, Virginia, was born September 22d, 1842. The Tayloe 
family of Virginia is descended from William Tayloe, of London, 
who came over to the colony about 1650. For two hundred years 
the members of this family have been conspicuously identified with 
the interests and history of the State. Connected by marriage 
with the Corbins and the Lees, the Pages and the Carters, the 
Beverlys and the Washingtons, the Tayloes have, by their personal 
qualities, shown themselves not unworthy of a lofty lineage. 
Perhaps it is praise enough to say that Lomax Tayloe was true 
to the traditions and fame of his family. 

W^e have no reminiscences of his boyhood. At an early age he 
became a pupil at the Episcojial High Schopl, near Alexandria, 
then under the charge of Rev. Ed:W5rdt3IcGuire. That he was ^ 
both a student and a gentleman is evidenced by the fact that he 
passed through a four years' course there without a single mark 
of demerit. 

From the High School he went to the University. He remained 
here but one session, for his patriotic ardor did not allow him to 
pursue the quiet paths of learning while his native State was 
calling her sons to arms. His first military duty was in the expe- 
dition to Harper's Ferry, whither he went, in response to the call 
of the Governor, with many of his college mates. In the summer 



516 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[October, 



of 1861 he joined the 2d Virginia Cavalry, under the command 
of Colonel Radford and Lieutenant-Colonel Mumford, afterwards 
so distinguished. As a private in this command, he shared in the 
first battle of Manassas, conspicuously displaying the coolness and 
daring bravery which marked his whole military career. At Lees- 
burg, while acting as Sergeant-Major of the regiment, he was par- 
ticularly distinguished, and was one of seven who pursued the 
routed foe to Waterloo. Such, indeed, were his courage and 
conduct that all the commissioned officers of the regiment heartily 
joined in recommending him for a commission. Accordingly, he 
was made Adjutant of the regiment. In the fight at Harrison- 
burg he was known to have slain two of the enemy with his sabre 
and to have captured a Federal Captain. At Bristoe Station he 
was slightly wounded. At the Second Manassas his horse was 
killed under him. But time would fail were we to enumerate all 
the special acts of gallantry which, together with his high-toned 
character, won the admiration and respect of all who knew him. 

LoMAX Tayloe was a rising man. Equal to the duties of any 
position to which he was called, he seemed to possess that expan- 
sive power of mind which would readily have adjusted itself to 
the demands of a rank much higher than any he lived to attain. 

The writer of this sketch is not in possession of the data to 
enable him to form anything like a critical estimate of Lomax 
Tayloe, morally and intellectually. The following are the closing 
sentences of a graceful tribute paid to his memory soon after his 
death, by a gentleman well known in Virginia : — " A more high- 
spirited and chivalrous youth never graced a saddle nor flashed a 
sabre. He possessed a gentle and generous heart, a cultivated 
mind, and most affectionate disposition, which won the cordial 
srood-will of comrades and friends. This is another noble sacrifice 
from the same family circle in defence of the sacred rights of Vir- 
ginia Thus has passed away another glorious youth, who 

contributed to the high reputation of his regiment as much as any 
other spirit in it, and added another sparkling gem to the jewels 
which adorn Virginia's brow." 



1863.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 517 

CARNOT POSEY, 

Brigadier-General, Anderson's Division, Hill's Corps. 

General Caknot Posey, second son of John Brooks Posey and 
Elizabeth Scriven, was born in Wilkinson county, Mississippi, on 
the 5th day of August, 1818. His father, Judge Posey, was a 
native of Virginia, a man of superior mind and extensive attain- 
ments, and in politics a States' Rights Democrat. His mother, a 
descendant of the Huguenots of South Carolina, was a noble 
model for her sex ; and under her careful training, and with her 
example before him to illustrate her precepts, his character was 
inwrought with that chivalric regard for woman which marked 
his life as a man. 

His education was conducted chiefly by his flither, until, at 
about the age of sixteen, he was sent to college in Jackson, 
Louisiana. 

In 1836 he became a student of Law at the University of Vir- 
ginia. He was a member of the Jefferson Society, in whose cata- 
logue for that year were the names of W. W. Boyce, of South 
Carolina, Thomas H. Watts, of Alabama, John B. Baldwin 
Thomas M. Isbell, and F. Lewis Marshall, of Virginia. When 
at the close of the session, he returned home, instead of practisino- 
his profession he pursued for some years the life of a planter in 
his native county. He did not forget, however, to cherish the 
friendships he had formed in Virginia; and towards his Alma 
Mater he had always a student's warm attachment. 

In 1840 he married Miss Mary Collins, of Adams county, who 
died in 1844, leaving him two sons. Of these, the elder. Stan- 
hope, became a Captain in the Confederate service, and Jefferson 
the younger, a Lieutenant. After the death of his wife, Mr. 
PosJiY entered upon the practice of law in the town of Woodville 
as a partner of Colonel George H. Gordon, a lawyer of high 
standing and with a lucrative practice. 

In 1846, when Congress passed an act calling for volunteers for 
the war with Mexico, he was among the first to respond. He was 
elected 1st Lieutenant in Company B of the 1st Mississippi Reg- 
iment, commanded by Jefferson Davis, and in this capacity he 
served for one year. At Buena Vista, where this regiment im- 
mortalized itself by restoring General Taylor's line, which had 



518 THE U^'IVEKSITi MEMOKIAL. 



[October, 



been broken on the left flank, Lieutenant Posey was slightly 
wounded. 

In 1849 he was married to Miss Jane AYhite, of Wilkinson 
county. The fruit of this marriage was six children : four sons 
and two daughters, all of whom survived their father. 

A man of noble impulses, and ready to espouse any interest 
which he thought would increase the amenities of life, he Avas an 
ardent Mason. For two years he presided as Master of Asylum 
Lodge, No. 63, of Ancient, Free, and Accepted Masons ; and in 
1854 he was chosen Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Missis- 
sippi. When he had filled a patriot's grave, that body placed 
upon its records the following testimony to his worth : — 

" Singularly mild in character, he was energetic in action, wise 
in council, brave, temperate, good. His diffidence of manner was 
the result of the innate modesty of the gentleman. No Harry of 
England was quicker or more resolute when duty called or obliga- 
tion summoned ; no patriot has ever died more deserving of remem- 
brance. With tears of affection we bedew his grave, and leave 
his name as an example for men and a bright star in the crown 
of Mississippi Masonry." 

Under the administration of President Buchanan he was 
appointed United States District Attorney for the Southern Dis- 
trict of Mississippi. He held this office until his State seceded 
from the Union, and then promptly resigned it. He afterwards 
received from Pi*esident Davis the same appointment for the Con- 
federate States. 

AVhen it became apparent that the secession of the Southern 
States was to be followed by war, Mr. Posey organized a volun- 
teer company, "The Wilkinson Rifles," the members of which 
elected him Cajitain. He at once offered tlie command to the 
Confederate Government, and, after a few weeks of drill, the 
"Rifles" went into service. Their departure from home is thus 
referred to by the Woodville Republican : — 

" On Friday last, this company, commanded by Captain Carnot 
Posey, broke up camp and marched into town under the escort 
of the Woodville Cadets and Home Guards. Arrived in the 
Court-House Square, where was assembled a large concourse of 
ladies and citizens generally, they were formed into line, when 
the Rev. Mr. Millsaps, of the Methodist Church, in a brief, 
spirited, and appropriate address, on behalf of the ladies of the 



18C3.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 519 



Bible Society, presented tlie company with a neatly-bound copy 
of the New Testament for each member. Rev, Mr. Rose, a mem- 
ber of the company, on their behalf received the gift of the 
ladies with a handsome acknowledgment. The company was then 
escorted to the spacious rooms in the Masonic Building, where 
the liberality of our citizens of town and country had provided 
for theai an excellent supper. Here they spent the night, and 
after an early breakfast they next morning took up their line of 
march to the cars. There, formed in two ranks, open order, the 
parting scene took place, and one more affecting is seldom wit- 
nessed. Mothers, sisters, wives, fathers, brothers, friends — all 
were there. Again and again was the anguished good-bye faltered 
forth with broken voice, amid sobs and tears. 

" And yet, there was not a mother, father, brother, sister, wife, 
or friend there who would have had it otherwise. All felt that it 
was a sacrifice cheerfully made in the holiest of causes. . . The 
loud voice of military command broke the spell at last. Ranks 
were closed up, and stepping on board the cars, they were soon 
off, cheered to the last by hurrahs of tlie men and waving hand- 
kerchiefs of the ladies. And thus we bade adieu to the Wilkinson 
Rifles; but we shall hear from them again. Their record will be 
a gallant and brilliant one." 

Their arrival in New Orleans was thus noticed by the Pica- 
yune : — 

" AVe are glad to welcome the arrival of the Wilkinson xvifles from 
Woodville, Mississippi, under command of Captain Carnot Posey, 
1st Lieutenant J. S. Hamilton, and 2d Lieutenant A. M. Feltus, 
Jr. This is a picked company of Mississippians, numbering 100 
rank and file ; and it will be sure to imitate the celebrated and 
heroic charge made by the Mississippians' at Monterey in the 
taking of that city when led by the heroes Davis, Quitman, 
McClung, Cooper, and otiiers." 

From New Orleans this company was transferred to Corinth, 
Mississippi; where, about the first of June, the 16th Mississippi 
Infantry was organized, and Ca})tain Posey elected to its com- 
mand. A member of " Tlie Defenders " — a company from Smith 
county, belonging to the new regiment — writing from "Camp 
Posey, Corinth, June 15th, 1861," to the Eastern Clarion, thus 
speaks of the impression made upon the men by their commanding 
officer : — 



520 THE UNIVEKSITV MEMOKIAL. 



[October, 



"Your readers are doubtless informed of the organization of 
the 16th Mississippi. Colonel Posey and Lieutenant-Colonel 
Clarke are splendid officers. They have already endeared them- 
selves to the entire regiment ; and although their election was 
quite warmly contested, I don't believe thei'e is a man in the regi- 
ment oiotv that would exchange them for anybody." Another 
correspondent of the same paper — a member of another company 
of the 16th — wrote from "Corinth, July 17th," to the same 
eifect: — " It is sratifyinp; to know that our reji^iment is considered 
in point of efficiency equal to any that Mississippi has furnished. 
The best feeling; exists between the soldiers and the officers. 
Colonel Carxot Posey is a high-toned, chivalrous gentleman, 
who wins the esteem and regard of all who approach him. Be- 
sides all this, he served with distinction in Mexico as an officer of 
the 1st Mississippi Regiment, and no one doubts that, if the op- 
portunity is affiDrded in the present Avar, he will win new laurels." 

Some ten days thereafter the regiment Avas ordered to Virginia. 
It reached Lynchburg about the first of August, and was thus 
complimented liy the Vb^giniaii of that city in its issue of the 
5th: — "The 16th Mississippi paraded our streets yesterday, 
preceded by their brass band. This is a noble body of men, ad- 
mirably equipped, one of the companies having the improved 
rifle, with sword bayonets. The regiment will leave here for Ma- 
nassas next Tuesday. They will do good service anywhere." 

The 16th spent the winter at Manassas, where it was put in the 
brigade of General George B. Crittenden. In November, when 
Crittenden was promoted and sent to Kentucky, Posey, as senior 
Colonel of the brigade, took command of it. It does not appear 
how long he acted in that capacity, but he was not promoted at 
that time, although it was expected by some that he would be. A 
correspondent said of him in this connection: — "Great regret 
would be felt at being deprived of him as Colonel, while his pro- 
motion would otherwise be pleasing to those under his command." 

No startling event marks the history of the Army of Northern 
Virginia during this first winter of the war. Rumors there Avere, 
noAV and then, of an advance, at one time of the Federals, at 
another of the Confederates ; rumors Avhich occasionally begot a 
feverish excitement in camp ; but apart from the drill and picket 
duty, there AA'as little for the soldiers to do except to fortify them- 
selves against the severity of the season. The monotony of the 



J86.3] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 521 

16th Mississippi was scarcely broken ; and the men having settled 
down in their winter quarters, seemed content and happy. Of 
their letters at this time the writer will be pardoned for giving a 
few extracts. One is so well pleased with his mode of life that he 
ventures to moralize on its superiority : — " It is a queer life we 
lead here, yet not unpleasant. We have become accustomed to 
our tents, and often wonder why houses were invented. The 
multiplication of conveniences and luxuries has multiplied 
human wants and tastes without materially increasing human 
comforts. A man never realizes this fact until he has been a 
soldier a few months, and found within the walls of a tent ten feet 
square a camp-kettle, a knapsack, a frying-pan, and a blanket, all 
the necessaries of life. The tent shelters from sun and rain, a 
blanket and knapsack on the ground make as comfortable a bed 
as one ever slept soundly upon ; the camp-kettle makes our coffee, 
and the frying-pan cooks our bacon and bread. The fresh air 
hardens our constitutions, prevents cold, and gives us health, 
while the pure mountain streams supply water, cool and delicious. 
What more should man desire ? " Another extract will be ex- 
cused for evident reasons : — " One of the boys from Woodville 
received a few days ago a letter bidding him be of good cheer, for 
the Wilkinson girls had resolved not to marry until after the war. 
The dear creatures ! They will have to conquer their aversion to 
rough hard liands and swarthy faces, if they are waiting for the 
Wilkinson Rifles ; for a tougher set of rough and ready chaps 
than the eaiL-de-cologne young gents who left Woodville a few 
months ago, would be hard to find. Heaven bless the Wilkinson 
girls! — I mean the old ladies too ; we have heard Avith grateful 
hearts of the hours of labor they are devoting to our comfort. 
There are no privations we bear, no hardships we undergo, that 
are not sweet to us, from the thought that they are for our country 
and the loved ones at home." 

The regiment was unusually healthy, but now and then it was 
called to bury a comrade whose system was not strong enough to 
endure the hardships of this primitive life. Mention is made of 
Ruffner Davis, who " died as he had lived, a sincere Christian," 
and who " sleeps on the margin of the battle-field of Manassas, 
where morn and eve echo the tread of armed hosts and the strains 
of martial music, fit resting-place and fit requiems for the boy 
soldier ; " and of Hugh Connell, son of AVilliam Conuell, Esq., 



522 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[October, 



and nephew of Colonel Posey. Young Connell, who was a 
member of his uncle's staff at the time of his death, volunteered 
in the Wilkinson Rifles before he was seventeen. He was buried 
on the 14th of November, 1861, on the adjacent farm of Mr. 
Weedon, *' whose hospitable house had become the home of the 
sick, especially of the Louisiana and Mississippi troops, as far as 
he was able to accommodate them." 

On the 8th of March, 1862, General Johnston evacuated Cen- 
treville and Manassas, and withdrew his army first to the line of 
the Rappahannock, and thence to the Rapidan. On the 18th of 
April the 16th Mississippi left the Rappahannock, reaching Gor- 
donsville on the 21st. From Gordonsville it was transferred with 
Ewell to the Valley of Virginia, and participated under his lead 
in the great campaign of General Jackson against Shields, Banks, 
and Milroy. After marching and countermarching probably two 
hundred and fifty miles, filling up the strategic plans of Jackson, 
we find the 16th at Front Royal on the 22d of May, where it was 
under the fire of the enemy's artillery, but not engaged. During 
this campaign, closing with the battles at Cross-Keys and Port 
Republic, it is said that Ewell's command marched at least four 
hundred and fifty miles, much of it in rainy Aveathcr, and often at 
night the men sleeping on the ground without tents, and of course 
not unfrequently with short rations. 

At Cross Keys (or Union Church), on the 8th of June, the 
Mississippians were hotly engaged, and proved themselves worthy 
of the prophecies that their friends had made. Says the Richmond 
Dispatch, in commenting upon the action of that day : — 

"At the battle of Union Church, on Sunday the 8th, the 16th 
Mississippi, Colonel Posey, greatly distinguished itself, and the 
Colonel was badly wounded. The regiment was placed in the 
woods to support a battery ; but the enemy, discovering the posi- 
tion, shelled the ground occupied by the Mississippians. Under 
this heavy fire they calmly stood, waiting for the word to advance, 
until a Yankee column deployed into line of battle directly in their 
front, only some forty yards distant. The 16th now delivered their 
fire, which was most deadly in its results. No less than two liundred 
and fifty Yankees bit the dust, and the column was completely 
broken. The Mississippians then closed upon the enemy, who fled 
in the utmost disorder. The conduct of the regiment throughout 
the conflict is much applauded." 

Another journal says, in the same connection . — 



Igg3/i THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 523 

" We learn from Captain O. P. Miller, of Wheat's battalion, 
that the charge made by Colonel Posey in the battle of Cross 
Keys was one of the most brilliant and heroic efforts of the war. 
His regiment charged an entire Yankee brigade and cut the New 
York 8th to pieces, leaving hundreds of dead and wounded on the 
field. The Colonel, in this engagement, received a severe though 
not serious wound in the arm. He is now at Charlottesville, and 
in a fair way of recovery. Captain Miller states that Colonel 
Posey and his regiment covered themselves with glory in this 
desperate and daring charge. Pie further says that it was one of 
the most admirably managed affairs of which the progress of this 
war furnishes any instance. The 16th Mississippi was temporarily 
detached from the brigade, and waited under cover till a Yankee 
brigade had come within fifty yards ; then rising, they gave the 
Yankees one volley, and, with a yell, rushed upon the whole 
brigade with their fixed bayonets, utterly routing them." 

In this battle. Colonel Posey made a very narrow escape. 
While at the head of his regiment he was struck by a ball which 
cut the skin on his breast and passed through his right arm, 
making, however, only a flesh wound. He was sent to AVaynes- 
boro' in an ambulance, and thence to the University of Virginia^ 
where, under the skilful treatment of his friend. Dr. J. Staige 
Davis, he was before very long restored to his command. 

After returning to the field. Colonel Posey led his regiment 
with his accustomed gallantry until January of the following year, 
(1863,) when he was promoted Brigadier-General, and placed in 
command of the 12th, IGth, 19th, and 48th Mississippi regiments. 
His influence over his men Avas not less potential in this wider 
sphere than it had been when he was a regimental commander; 
and his industrious attention to discipline rendered the brigade 
one of the most efficient in the Army of Northern Virginia. One 
of his men, writing from camp, thus expressed the feeling of his 
command towards him : — *' They love General Posey like a father ; 
and he has such complete control over his men that in camp all 
things glide along as smoothly as any General could desire. You 
may know something about the General's character at home. As 
to that, I am a stranger ; but I can testify as to his good qualities 
in camp, and the camp is the place to learn a man's true character. 
He is sociable at all times, ready and willing to converse with any 
man, to liear his complaints, and to give advice to those who 
ask it.'' 



/ 

524 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [October, 

At the time of Hooker's advance, Posey's brigade, wliicli 
forraed part of Anderson's division, was on picket duty on the 
Rappahannock. It was recalled from the river at the approach 
of the enemy, and was among the first troops that engaged that 
"fighting" General at Chancellorsville. The part which Ander- 
son's division played in that great battle is matter of history ; but 
the following letter, taken from the Richmond Sentinel, will give, 
somewhat in detail, the action of Posey's command in that series 
of engagements concluding with the storming of the heights at 

Fredericksburg : — 

^^ Bivouac on the Battle-field, near "I 

Feedericksburg, Va., May Sth, 1863. J 

" Among the many brigades that have rendered their names 
immortal in the recent engagements along the Rappahannock, 
none have acted a more conspicuous part than Posey's brigade* 
of Mississippi regiments — the scarred heroes of Seven Pines, Cross 
Keys, Williamsburg, and Gaines' Farm. Previously to the com- 
mencement of the late battles, this brigade was encamped near 
United States Ford, doing outpost duty. From this place they 
were withdrawn, and were constantly on the alert for eight suc- 
cessive days. On Friday evening, May 1st, they repulsed the 
enemy's skirmishers, and drove a column three times their number 
pell-mell before them. Again, on Sunday morning, May 3d, they 
charged the enemy in their breastworks before Chancellorsville, 
capturing 700 or 800 prisoners, and covering the earth in every 
direction with killed and wounded. Generals Lee and Anderson 
were present at this daring exploit, and expressed their admiration 
of the courage of the Southern braves. The Yankee Yandals 
could not endure the shouts and terrifying yells of the gallant 
Mississippians, but fled ignominiously before the onset, not, how- 
ever, until many of the ' bravest of the brave ' had fallen upon the 
crimson field. 

" This brigade was also engaged Monday evening. May 4th, 
near Fredericksburg, and that added another gem to her glittering 
diadem of victorious achievements. Wherever the battle raged 
hottest. General Posey, at the head of his brave little command, 
was sure to be seen doing good service. About three hundred 
and fifty gallant men, killed and wounded in the recent battles, 
bear testimony to the part this brigade bore in this series of bril- 
liant successes." 



jgg3.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 525 

The military life of General Posey from this time until his 
death, is closely connected with the history of Anderson's division, 
Hill's corps. The writer is not sufficiently flimiliar with its de- 
tails to attempt to follow him step by step ; but it is enough to 
say that it sorted well with his previous career of gallantry. He 
passed unhurt in battle until the engagement at Bristoe Station, 
on the 14th of October, 1863, when he was wounded in the left 
leg. Turning to Captain Posey he said, "Well, son, they have 
got me this time ! " 

He was removed from the battle-field to Culpeper Court House, 
and thence, at his own request, to the residence of his friend. Dr. 
Davis, at the University of Virginia. His wound, which was 
from a very small shot, was not at first thought to be serious ; but 
it was not long before alarming symptoms appeared. He received 
all the aid that medical skill and friendship could offer, but it 
presently became evident that he could not recover. Amid the 
classic scenes of his boyhood, in the very room he occupied when 
a student in 1836, and surrounded by generous, hospitable friends, 
he died calmly on the 13th of November, 1863. His body rests 
in the University burying-ground ; the spot, which is sacred to 
many besides his bereaved wife and children, being marked by a 
handsome shaft upon Avhich is this inscription : — 

General Carnot Posey, 

Bom August 5th, 1818, 
Died November 13th, 1863. 

From an obituary notice, written by one who knew him, and 
published in the Daily ITississippian shortly after his death, the 
following passages touching his ])rivate character are taken : — 

" The death of Carnot Posey will carry ii pang to the heart 
of every one who knew him ; for to know his pure and unselfish 
character was to honor and to love him. Singularly simple in his 
manners, warm in his attachments, honorable in his purposes, he 
was at once the model of a soldier and of a gentleman. In his 
nature all the elements of a true manhood were admirably blended ; 
for while his heart was of the bravest, it was yet filled with the 
gentleness and tenderness of a woman. So true is it ' the bravest 
are the tenderest, the loving are the daring.' Peace to his ashes ! 
honor to his memory ! which, at least in the State of his birth and 
aflfection, will live long and grow greener with the lapse of time." 



526 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. [October, 

General Posey's mind was by nature reverential, and this ten- 
dency was strengthened by his education. Religion had been with 
him a lifelong study ; and his M^ell-worn Bible, carried through the 
war, attests the factthat he gave constant attention to tlie testimonies 
of God. He died in the faith and communion of the Catholic 
Church. 

His death created a profound impression both in the army and 
in " tlie State of his birth and affection." Resolutions of strong 
character, expressive of regret at his loss and of sympathy with 
his family were passed by the bar of Wilkinson county ; and in 
his brigade, as soon as liis death was known, the men who had 
" bound him with bays of their own winning," held a meeting. 
Colonel N. H. Harris, commanding brigade, was called to the 
chair, and Lieutenant-Colonel M. B. Harris, of the 12th, Colonel 
S. E. Baker, of the 16th, Lieutenant-Colonel T. J. Harden, of 
the 19th, and Colonel J. M. Jayne, of the 48th Mississippi Regi- 
ment, were appointed Vice-Presidents, and Major S. B. Thomas, 
of the 12th, Secretary. Whereupon the following committee was 
appointed to draft preamble and resolutions expressive of the 
deep regret felt for the loss of our late worthy and efficient 
General : — 

COMMITTEE. 

Staff, Major H. J. Hearsey, 
12th, Sergeant P. A. Botto, 

" Sergeant-Major Wm. O. Chapman, 
l6th, Captain S. M. Bain, 
' " Sergeant J. J. Kirkpatrick, 
P. R. Leatherman, 
19th, Captain R. W. Phipps, 
" " J. H. Duncan, 

" " W. E. Dooly, 

48th, " L. C. Moore, 
" " W. R. Stone, 

" " James Ellett. 

The committee retired, and in a few moments reported the 
following preamble and resolutions, which were unanimously 
adopted : — 

"Whereas, God in His divine providence has seen fit to take 
from our midst our late commanding Brigadier-General Carnot 
Posey, of Wilkinson county, Mississippi, who died of wounds 
received in the late engagement at Bristoe Station, Virginia; 
therefore. 



igyg-, THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 527 

" Resolved, That while deploring the loss of so gallant and 
efficient an officer, who, by his disinterestedness, by the faithful 
discharge of his duty in the camp and on the field, by his courtesy 
to the officers of his command, and by his solicitude for the com- 
fort and welfare of his men, endeared himself to all connected 
with him, we cannot but feel that he has been taken from us to 
fill a higher and a nobler place before the Throne of Him who ever 
worketh for His own glory. 

" Resolved, That the officers and men of this brigade tender the 
family of the deceased their sincerest sympathy in tliis their great 
bereavement, hoping that He from whom cometh every good and 
perfect gift, may send them strength to bear with patience their 
great affliction ; and in the knowledge that the deceased died in a 
holy cause, and as became a patriot and a soldier, they may find 
some consolation. 

" Resolved, That a copy of the proceedings of this meeting be 
furnished the Richmond Enquirer, Atlanta Apj^eal, and 3Iississip- 
pian, for publication ; that a copy be spread upon the records of 
the brigade, and that a copy be furnished the family of the de- 
ceased. N. H. Harris, President. 

"S. B. Thomas, Secretary." 

The soldiers who paid this tribute to the memory of their fallen 
chieftain, continued during the subsequent years of the war to 
sustain under their new leader, General N. H. Harris, the reputa- 
tion they had acquired under Featherston and Posey. When in 
1864 the time for which they had enlisted expired, they used the 
occasion only to reiterate their devotion to the cause of the South. 
Their action was communicated to the Confederate Congress by 
the following dispatch, Avhicli Mr. McRae, of Mississippi, read in 
the House of Representatives : — 

" Orange Court House, Virginia, 

February IZth, 1864. 

" Honorable J. J. McRae : 

"Posey's old brigade, consisting of the 12th, 16th, 19th, and 
48th Misssissippi Regiments, have this day re-enlisted for the war 
unanimously. " Stanhope Posey, 

" Captain, and A. A. G." 



528 THE Ujs^iveesity memorial. 



[October, 



The following letter from Lieutenant-General Ewell forms a 
fitting conclusion of this article. It speaks in almost unmeasured 
terms of the heroism of the " old brigade " in one of the severest 
trials of the war ; and, at the same time, it pays a handsome com- 
pliment to the 16th Mississippi, which General Posey led through 
the Valley campaign : — 

" Headquarters, DePxVrtment of Richmond, 1 
Richmond, Virginia, December 27, 1864. J 

'' General N. H. Harris, Commanding Brigade. 

" General: — I have omitted to acknowledge the services ren- 
dered by your brigade on the 12th of May last at Spottsylvania, 
not from any want of appreciation, but because I wish my thanks 
to rest upon the solid foundation of official rG[)orts. 

" The manner in which your brigade charged over the hill to 
recapture our works, was witnessed by me with intense admiration 
for men who could advance so calmly to what seemed and proved a 
most certain death. I have never seen troops under a hotter fire 
than was endured on this day by your brigade and some others. 
Major-General Ed. Johnson, since his exchange, has assured 
me that the whole strength of the enemy's army was poured into 
the gap formed by the capture of his command. 

" He estimates the force engaged at this place on their side at 
forty thousand, besides Berney's command of perfectly fresh 
troops. Prisoners from all of their corps were taken by us. 

" Two divisions ofvmy corps, your brigade and two others (one 
of which was scarcely engaged), confronted successfully this im- 
mense host, and not only won from them nearly all the ground, 
but so shattered their army that they were unable again to 
make a serious attack until they received fresh troops. I have 
not forgotten the conduct of the 16th Mississippi Regiment while 
under my command, from Front Royal to Malvern Hill. I am 
glad to see, from a trial more severe than any it experienced while 
in my division, that the regiment is in a brigade of which it may 
well be proud. 

^^ Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" R. S. Ewell, Lieutenant- General." 



1363.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 529 

JOSEPH C. CABELL, Jr., 

First Lieutenant, Company H, 49tli Virginia Infantry. 

A family so numerous and so honorably connected with the his- 
tory of Virginia, and of other States, as the Cabells, could hardly 
fail to be represented in a work like this. The first of the name 
in this countiy was Dr. AVilliam Cabell, a surgeon of the British 
navy, who emigrated to Virginia about the year 1723 or '24. He 
purchased extensive lands on both sides of the upper James River, 
and settled on the Swan Creek Plantation (on which the village 
of Warminster was afterwards built), and whicli has since been 
known as Liberty Hall. Acting as his own executor, he dis- 
tributed his lands among his elder children long before his death, 
which occurred in 1774, reserving only the plantation on which 
he resided, and which he bequeathed to his youngest son, Colonel 
Nicholas Cabell. 

Dr. Cabell had four sons, of whom the eldest, Colonel William 
Cabell, Sr., born in March, 1730, became the owner of the estate 
called Union Hill, in Nelson county — a baronial establishment, 
which, for its extensive appointments and admirable management. 
Dr. Grigsby has fitly compared to Mount Vernon. He was as- 
sociated with Washington in all the great political bodies of Vir- 
ginia, previous to the year 1776. "He served in the Colonial 
House of Burgesses, in the Committee of Safety, in the Con- 
vention of '76 (which formed the Jii'st wH^^en constitution of Vir- 
ginia), was the first Senator from his district under that con- 
stitution, and was a member of the convention which accepted for 
Virginia the Constitution of the United States." He also had 
four sons. The eldest of these was Colonel Samuel Jordan Cabell, 
of Soldier's Joy, the estate on the river next below Union Hill, who 
served with credit in the Kevolutionary War, and afterwards in 
the House of Delegates of Virginia; sat with his father in the 
Convention of 1789, and voted with him against the Constitution 
of the United States, and served as member of Congress from his 
District from 1795 to 1803. 

William, the second son, and known as Colonel William Cabell, 
Jr., succeeded liis father in the possession of Union Hill. He too 
served in the latter scenes of the Revolutionary War under Gen- 
eral Stevens. Ho married Anne, daughter of Judge Paul Car- 
34 



530 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. • [November. 

rington, and was the father of Edward A. Cabell, Mayo Cabell, 
and others. 

Lieutenant Joseph Carrington Cabell, Jr., son of Mayo 
Cabell, was born at Union Hill, Nelson county, in June, 1837. 
His mother, Mary Cornelia, was a daughter of the late Judge 
William Daniel, Sr., of Lynchburg, Virginia. 

In 1852 he became a student at the University of Virginia, 
and continued there through three consecutive years. During 
this time he graduated on several subjects, and was distinguished 
at the intermediate and final examinations on others. " He was 
known," says a friend, " by almost every young man attending 
that institution, and was universally beloved." During his entire 
college course he was a member of the Washington Society, in 
which he was honored twice with the office of President. 

The following sketch of his military career is from the pen of 
D. S. G. C, an intimate friend, who served with him in the 
field :— 

" At the opening of the late war he was both a lawyer and a 
farmer, but he cheerfully and promptly abandoned both pursuits 
to obey what he conceived to be the call of his country. He was 
one of the most active in getting up a company in his neighbor- 
hood, called 'The New Market Volunteers.' At its organization 
in the spring of 1861, he was elected Junior 2d Lieutenant. The 
corjpany after drilling a while at New Market, Nelson county, 
rendezvoused at Charlottesville. From Charlottesville it was 
moved to Culpeper Court House, and thence, after a short stay, 
it was advanced to the front at Manassas. Lieutenant Cabell 
participated with his company in the great and memorable victory 
of the 21st July, a battle which will forever illustrate the valor 
of the Southern people. When General Johnston evacuated the 
line of the Rapidan and went to the peninsula to meet the advan- 
cing columns of McClellan, Lieutenant Cabell went with his 
company, then attached to the 49th Virginia Infantry, Colonel 
William Smith, and faithfully discharged his duty amid the hard- 
ships and dangers of the cam})aign around Yorktown ; and with- 
out a murmur bore manfully his part in that long and wearisome 
retreat, in dreary weather, from the peninsula to Richmond. 
The writer of this sketch was a fellow-soldier with Lieutenant 
Cabell, was with him in the same mess and company, and can 
of his own knowledge testify as to the devotion with which he 



1SB3.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 531 

discharged his duty as an officer and a patriot. Reared as a gen- 
tleman and accustomed to all the luxuries of life, he never com- 
plained of the scarcity or hardnes? of fare, nor murmured on 
account of toilsome marches or exposure to weather. In the 
retreat from Yorktown, when the spirit of the army was much 
depressed, his voice was often heard to speak a language of stern 
resolve and patriotic encouragement. He had a noble and manly 
spirit which never faltered or cowered in the presence of danger, 
but willingly made every sacrifice in the performance of duty. 
The winter's cold and the summer's heat, the perils of the battle 
and the fatigues and the exposure of the march, never in any 
degree diminished his zeal and devotion to the cause which he 
had espoused, and for which he was willing to lay down his life. 

" In the battle of Seven Pines the company and regiment to which 
Lieutenant Cabell belonged bore a distinguished part. The 
brio-ade — Featherston's — had to charge the right wing of Casey's 
division in its entrenched position on the south side of theChicka- 
hominy ; it was victorious, but with heavy loss. In this fierce 
conflict Lieutenant Cabell was severely wounded, both in the 
arm and in the breast. He was taken to a Richmond hospital, 
and so soon as his wounds permitted, allowed to return home to 
recuperate. 

" But one with his spirit and self-sacrificing disposition could 
not long remain contentedly at home while the fate of the South 
still rested on the decision of the sword. In October, 1862, he 
rejoined his regiment, it having been transferred to Early's brigade 
of Ewell's division soon after the conclusion of the battles around 
Richmond. He was not with his company at the first battle of 
Fredericksburg, having a short time before been appointed Judge- 
Advocate of a special court-martial. As soon as this was ad- 
journed, he rejoined his company and participated in nearly all 
)the operations of Jackson's corps. He was at the retaking of 
Marye's Hill by Early, at the capture of Winchester by Ewell, 
and at the great but disastrous battle of Gettysburg. 

" Lieutenant Cabell was of a warm and generous disposition 
of a character incapable of any meanness. He deserves to be cher- 
ished in our memories as one who took the sword not from ambition, 
but from a sense of duty. On the battle-field his courage was of tiie 
cool, available kind. No one could be kinder or more considerate 
than he was to the sick and wounded, fur he had a heart which 



532 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL, [November, 

loved to relieve the distressed. Upon the reorganization at York- 
town he was promoted by election to the 1st Lieutenancy, and such 
was the esteem in which he was held that he only lacked a few 
votes of being elected Major of the regiment. 

" While the Confederate army was in Cnlpeper county, he was 
attacked with violent diarrhoea about the beginning of November, 
1863. He was sent to a hospital at Culpeper Court House, and 
thence to one at Richmond when the array fell back from the 
Rappahannock to the Rapidan. He died at the Richmond hos- 
pital soon after his arrival, on the 11th of November, 1863, and 
in the twenty-seventh year of his age. He was buried at Union 
Hill, Nelson county, the family seat of many of his paternal 
ancestors. 

"The gallant soldier rests from his labors, the kind and gen- 
erous heart beats no longer'; but some still live who loved him, 
and one of them now offers this brief sketch in the spirit with which 
he would lay a memorial- wreath upon his grave." 



WILLIAM S. WRIGHT, 

Adjutant, 61st Virginia Infantry. 

William Stephen Wright was born in Nansemond county, 
Virginia, on the 26th of March, 1841. He was the third son of 
William Joseph and Martha Eley Wright. 

While yet a boy, and almost unconscious of her worth and 
watchful care, it was his misfortune to lose his mother. He was 
thus deprived of that maternal guidance so essential to develop and 
train to perfection those finer traits of character which were so 
manifest to all in his maturer years. At the age of six he 
was sent to the neighborhood school, known as " Yeates's Lower 
Free School." Here he soon exhibited a strength of intellect 
which gave him preeminence over his fellows, and promised dis- 
tinction in any profession he might select. At this stage of his 
life, a distinguishing characteristic was his energy ; he possessed, 
for one so young, an almost unnatural determination to accomplish 
whatever task was set him. A prominent feature of the school 



1SC3.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 533 

was the weekly declamation, in which all the pupils participated, 
and in which there was a wider field for competition than in any 
other department. Well do we remember the anxiety with which 
those gala days were regarded — days when other faces than those 
of pupils were familiar in the school-room, and the presence of 
strangers gave new force to the zeal with which each competitor 
contended for the meed of praise. It might reasonably be supposed 
that an awkward timidity was the chief feature in the efforts of 
such youthful orators ; but with William there was even now a 
surprising degree of confidence. There was a punctilious regard 
for correct articulation of words and modulation of voice, and an 
accuracy of gesture seldom seen in boys of maturer years. 

It must not be imagined, however, that in the developnaent of 
his oratorical powers he neglected the cultivation of other faculties. 
All his studies were prosecuted with an energy which gained the 
commendation of his teachers and secured for him a prominence 
in his classes. This prominence did not have the effect, as is apt to 
be the case, to make him haughty, or carry even the slightest ap- 
pearance of thinking himself above his class-mates. On the 
contrary, his conduct was uniformly such as to win their highest 
regard, and we hazard nothing in saying there was not a more 
general favorite in the whole school than he. In all the sports of 
the campus he was a most active participant, particularly in those 
games which required a fine physical development. And here we 
find the same energy and determination to excel which character- 
ized him in the school-room. Possessed of an even temperament, 
but full of life and activity, he Avould almost allow himself to be 
overcome with fatigue rather than yield the contest to an opponent. 
If conquered, he would challenge to another contest, and never 
seemed content until he had won a victory. 

It was during his continuance at this school, under a frequent 
change of teachers, that a deep religious interest Avas awakened in 
the community under the preaching of the Rev. J. S. Reynoldson. 
At this period William was about twelve years old, and beparae 
deeply interested in the sermons to which he was a regular listener. 
In the great revival which followed, he made a public profession 
of religion and connected liimself with the "Shoulder's Hill 
Baptist Church," of which the Rev. William M. Young, D.D., 
now of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, was then pastor. In connection 
with the Sabbath School of the church the pastor had established a 



534 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [^'ovcmber, 

" Youth's Missionary Society," which held its sessions regularly once 
a month. Its meetings were held exclusively by the members, under 
the supervision and counsel of the pastor; and among the promi- 
nent features of interest was an address at each meeting by some 
one of the members. William was frequently selected to deliver 
the monthly address. It was a task from which we never knew 
him to shrink, but one in which he took pride and always acquitted 
himself with credit. He was always ready for the performance 
of any duty, and almost a constant incumbent of some one of the 
offices connected with the society. 

As a member of the church his life was entirely consistent, and 
to human eyes without reproach. There was manifest in his acts 
a conscientious regard for the right and an earnest devotion to all 
religious duties, without in the slightest degree exhibiting any 
spirit of self-righteousness. 

While we have not claimed for William Wright that he was 
in any respect a prodigy, we believe that his was an order of talent 
considerably above mediocrity. There was, however, one talent 
which he developed purely by self-culture^ and to an unusual 
extent. In his early childhood he exhibited a fondness for music 
which did not attract any particular attention, until with the toy 
instruments which fell in his way he absolutely made music. He 
was then supplied Avith such instruments as his fancy might 
suggest, and rapidly acquired a proficiency which was the wonder 
and admiration of his friends. Music was a jjassion with him, 
and all his leisure moments at home were devoted to it, though 
not to the exclusion of any duty. This talent was inherent; and 
without any assistance other than such as he could procure from 
the few books within his reach, he became an accomplished per- 
former on several instruments. Vocal music constituted no less 
an attraction than instrumental, and his knowledge of the former, 
coupled with an unusually fine voice, made him a leader in several 
social clubs, and also of several church choirs at different times. 
In the social circle this gift made him an ornament, and rendered 
his presence always especially welcome. He composed music with 
considerable facility, and it was his design to have his productions 
published, but circumstances which he could not control prevented 
the accomplishment of his purpose. Many of his associates at 
school and in society can remember his sweet piano-touch, and his 
comrades about the camp-fire still remember the merry notes with 



jjgg-] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 535 

■which he was wont to enliven the glowing surroundings of 
winter quarters. And when the men of the camp were as- 
sembled for worship, his voice could be heard above all others, 
sending up a melody of praise. 

Music is said to carry with it a softening, refining influence; 
and it may be tliat the great gentleness of his disposition was in a 
measure attributable to his fondness for it. 

In September, 1855, in company with two older brothers and 
three other young men from the same section, he left home for 
Columbian College, Washington, D. C. William was the 
youngest of the party; and arriving at the college, possed with 
credit the preliminary examination, and with the oldest of his 
companions was admitted to the freshman class, where he soon took 
rank among the best. His personal deportment was without 
reproach, as was attested by the fact that during his continuance 
at the college he never received a demerit or reproof from one of 
the officers, nor was there the least feeling of unkindness on the 
part of his associates. The literary societies in connection with 
the college soon attracted his attention, and with a natural fondness 
for debate, he availed himself of the privik^ges thus conferred. 
Here he had a wider field for development, and he engaged in the 
debates with all the energy of which he was capable, applying 
himself rigidly during his spare hours to the preparation of his 
argument. Whenever opportunity was offered, as was frequently 
the case during the sessions of Congress, he did not fail to attend 
the debates of that body. Those were days when the affairs of 
the whole country (and not of a party or a faction) demanded and 
received the consideration which was their due. The days of the 
giants had not quite passed away, nor had pygmies entirely usurped 
the seats of statesmen of rare merit. Pierce, and afterwards 
Buchanan, gave dignity and intellect to the executive office. 
Fitzpatrick and Breckenridge in succession presided in the 
Senate , and the incorruptible Judge Roger B. Taney was the 
Presiding Justice of the Supreme Court. In the Congress and 
before the Supremo Court, there were intellectual efforts worthy 
of the best days of the Republic. Upon the occasion of any ex- 
traordinary debate before either of these tribunals, William was 
an eager and attentive listener, and seldom iailed to carry to his 
study valuable lessons derived from the discussion of the question 
at issue. He had in earl}^ life expressed a preference for the legal 



536 THE UNIVEESITY MEIMORTAL. [Novcm')cr, 

profession, and it is probable that his attendance upon these 
debates, particularly before the Supreme Cohrt, confirmed his 
choice. The Congressional Library, as also that of the Smith- 
sonian Institute, were favorite places of resort for him, and he 
often wished that he could through life have uninterrupted access 
to them. 

He was an active participant in all the intellectual contests in 
which his class was permitted to take part, as it was in the direc- 
tion of forensic discussion that his energies and talent swere more 
particularly turned. He would rather gain a distinction in oratory 
than in ancient languages. It was, therefore, with peculiar 
pleasure that he heard in his third collegiate year of the appro- 
priation of a fund, the proceeds of which were to be devoted an- 
nually to the purchase of a gold medal, to be awarded to the best 
orator of the senior and junior classes. He at once determined to 
contest for the prize, and in the graduating class of 1859 the 
orator's medal was awarded to him. 

Only a few days after he had thus distinguished himself, he was 
declared a full graduate of the college with six others who had 
entered at the same time; the original number having been 
twenty-five. He was the youngest of Jiis class, and had tnken 
some of its highest honors. 

Returning to his home his thoughts were now most intent upon 
the question of his profession in life. In a few weeks it was de- 
cided that he should attend the law course at the University of 
Virginia ; and, accordingly, with one older brother, he entered 
that institution in the autumn of 1859. He was not long in sur- 
rounding himself with warm personal friends, men who were 
drawn to him by his amiability, and to whom he was most strongly 
attached. 

He often expressed the wish that he had leisure to devote to 
essay writing ; but in his anxiety to realize the largest benefit 
from the single session allotted to him here, and the absence of 
any preparation for the course rendering a close application neces- 
sary, he rarely found time for such occupation. He was, however, 
an occasional contributor to the University Magazine, and his 
articles bore evidence of the fact that he wielded a ready pen . Here 
he connected himself with the Washington Society ; and though 
very much interested in its exercises, the same causes deterred him 
from an active participation in its debat«s. Indeed, the study of 



1363] THE UNTVEESITY MEMORIAL. 537 

the profession he had chosen engaged his almost exclusive atten- 
tion . 

After spending the session here, he determined, upon the advice 
of friends, to spend a year in the office of some practitioner of 
law. Accordingly, he was in the summer of 1860 admitted as a 
student in the law-office of Hon. James Lyons, of Richmond. 
The bench of the Hustings Court was at this time occupied by the 
lamented Judge William H. Lyons, son of Hon. James Lyons. 
He had been elevated to the bench at the early age of 28 years, 
and was a distinguished ornament to the profession. 

The office of Judge Lyons adjoined that of his father, and the 
benefit of his extensive library, as well as of his- counsel, was 
freely extended to the students in his father's office. In him 
William found a valuable assistant, and the assiduity with which 
he prosecuted his studies here soon won for him the confidence and 
esteem of his distinguished preceptor. The extensive practice of 
the father gave him little time in his office, and from a more inti- 
mate association with the son, the young men there began to con- 
sider him as their teacher. Under the instruction and practical 
knowledge acquired here, William had rapidly prepared himself 
for the practice of his profession, and was looking forward with 
satisfaction to the day when he should enter upon it. 

But in tlie immediate future there appeared the probability of 
a strife far different from that in which he had hoped to en- 
gage. Upon the election of a sectional President, political excite- 
ment became at once intense in Richmond. A¥hen Virginia 
called togetlier her sons to consider in convention the duties of the 
hour, vast throngs attended upon the deliberations of that body, 
and awaited with anxiety the vote which should decide the destiny 
of the old Commonwealth. Appreciating fully the wrongs which 
had been heaped upon his section, and anticipating still greater 
wrong in the Union, William Weight was deeply solicitous 
concerning this decision, and attended daily upon the sittings of 
the convention. When the result Avas announced, lie left at once 
the quiet pursuits of a student's life and repaired to his native 
county. 

Here his earnest efforts were directed towards the formation of 
a company for service in the ''Provisional Army of Virginia." 
In the excitement then raging, tin's was a task of easy accomplish- 
ment ; and on the organization of the "Craney Island Artillery," 



538 THE U^'IVEESIIY MEMORIAL. 



[November, 



a few days after his arrival at his home, he was elected its 2d 
Lieutenant. The services of the company were immediately ten- 
dered to the Governor, and it was directed to report for duty at 
one of the river batteries in the vicinity of Norfolk. When 
Virginia joined the Confederacy, and her troops were transferred 
to the Confederate army, this company was assigned to the 9th 
Virginia Regiment. During the first year of the war army-life 
ill the vicinity of Norfolk Avas rather inactive, and without any 
incident of particular note. Lieutenant Weight's dignified and 
soldierly bearing, free from any manifestation of partiality, yet 
accompanied with a rigid regard for discipline without harshness, 
had endeared him to all those under his command. Just previous 
to the evacuation of Norfolk, when the Southern army had be- 
come in a great measure demoralized by the reorganization, tliere 
was considerable commotion in the camp. He had never sought 
bv any means to advance his rank, and when a re-election was 
almost unanimously tendered to him, from private and prudential 
motives he declined it, and enlisted as a private in the " Old 
Dominion Guards," (Company K), of tlie same regiment. 

With this company he left Norfolk, and was ordered in front 
of Richmond, as the Federal army, under McClellan, was moving 
up the Peninsula. The division of General Huger, to which this 
regiment was attaclied, Avas camped near the "Seven Pines," 
when a portion of the Federal army crossed the Chickahominy, 
and the 9th Virginia Regiment bore a prominent part in that 
battle. After the enemy had been driven back, and the fighting 
of the first day was nearly over, William was wounded severely 
in the left arm. He refused any offers of assistance to the rear, 
preferring that others worse hurt tiian himself should have all 
the care they required. After reaching a hospital in the rear, he 
was completely prostrated from loss of blood, and was sent to 
Richmond, where he met his old family physician, and received 
every attention which kind hands could bestow. After a short 
time he was able to be moved to Petersburg, wliere loving hands 
ministered to all his wants, and under the kindest attention was' 
soon able to move about on the street, though it was several weeks 
before he recovered the use of his arm. 

While awaiting his recovery here, and anxious to rejoin his 
companions, he was appointed Adjutant of the 61st Virginia 
Regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel W. F. Niemeyer commanding. A 



isra.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL, 539 

portion of this regiment was then stationed at Petersburg, and 
very soon afterward he entered upon the discharge of his duties. 
The regiment remained at Petersburg until the autumn of 1862, 
when it was ordered to Culpeper. Here it continued until the 
return of General Lee's army from the first Maryland campaign, 
when it was attached to Mahone's brigade. Early in the follow- 
ing spring the active campaign of 1863 began, and the part which 
Mahone's brigade bore in all the battles of that and succeeding 
years is too well known to be repeated here. In every engage- 
ment the clear voice of Adjutant Wright might be heard cheer- 
ing the men, and his erect form be seen in the front ranks, as, 
M'aving his sword, he charged the enemy's lines. At Chancel- 
lorsville his reojiment was in the thickest of the fi";ht,and he bore 
himself with distinguished gallantry. Through all the campaigns 
of that year, from Chancellorsville, by Slaughter's Mountain, 
Winchester, Martinsburg, and Harper's Ferry, through Maryland 
and Pennsylvania to Gettysburg and back, in every battle and 
skirmish in which his brigade participated he was always ready 
for duty. Through all that campaign he passed without the 
slightest wound. Indeed, he did not seem to fear death in this 
shape ; and apart from the natural excitement inseparable from a 
great battle, he was as calm and collected as when off duty. 

In the autumn of 1863, after the return from Gettysburg, the 
army had resumed its old camping-ground around Orange Court 
House and the Rapidan. It is a somewhat singular fact that in 
the last interview between the writer and the subject of this 
memoir (which occurred while on a short leave of absence with 
his relatives, then in Petersburg), as he was about taking his 
leave of us, he exhibited an unusual melancholy at parting, and 
remarked that he did not expect to see us again ; that he did not 
anticipate death from the bullet, but had no idea that he would 
survive the war, or if so, it would be only a short time. He 
thought he would die of disease, though his appearance then 
indicated the best health, and lie had been from childhood exceed- 
ingly robust. Could he have had a premonition of his fate? 
We have heard of similar forebodings in others ; and however 
futile may be the efforts of human intellect to account for them, 
surely they have been sometimes most painfully and, speedily 
fulfilled. Little did his friends dream how soon they should be 
summoned to the sad realization of his gloomy predictions. On 



540 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [November, 

the 16th of November, 1863, having just returned from divine 
service in the camp, and while seated in front of his tent in com- 
pany with some of his most esteemed friends, he suddenly com- 
plained of illness, and the symptoms appearing rather violent, he 
requested that the surgeon be summoned. Upon his arrival he 
pronounced the disease a congestive chill, and with all the skill 
and restoratives which he could command he applied himself 
faithfully to his relief. He passed through the first attack, and 
human skill was exhausted in its effort to prevent a repetition, 
but without avail. On the 17th of November, 1863, the chill 
returned, and with such violence as to deprive him of his reason. 
Away from home and relatives, surrounded by all the " pomp 
and circumstance of Avar," he breathed his last. Devoted friends 
watched around his dying bed and soothed his brow. The first 
intimation his friends in Petersburg received of his illness was 
through a dispatch from his firm friend, Lieut.-Colonel Stuart, 
announcing his illness; and a second dispatch, received a few 
minutes later, announced his death. A gloomy sorrow settled 
upon the camp, and all felt that one of its most efficient officers 
had gone. Resolutions of deep regret a'nd o'f sympatliy with his 
bereaved family were unanimously adopted by the regiment. 
His body was given in charge to his faithful servant, and by him 
conveyed to Petersburg, where it was interred in old Blandford 
Cemetery. A marble slab marks his resting-place, bearing the 
simple inscription — 

Sacred to the memory of 

William Stephen Wright, 

Aclj't of the 61st Va. Regiment, 

Who was born March 26th, 1841 

and died Nov. 17th, 1863. 

" None knew 1dm hut to love Mm, 
None named Mm but to praise.'^ 

Thousands more of his comrades sleep within the same enclo- 
sure; and on the 9th of June in each year, as the delicate bouquets 
and wreaths, with vases of all hues, and sprigs of green, bedeck 
the soldier's mounds in this sadly beautiful " City of the Dead," 
loving hearts and willing hands bestrew this spot 

Typical even unto death are these flowers which each year are 
freshly laid upon the graves of our dear dead heroes. " Man 



1SC3.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOKIAL. 541 

Cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down ; like the flower of 
the field he fadeth, and like the grass he withereth." But there 
is an immortal amaranth of the heart; a flower that, nurtured in 
the garden of the soul, and kept bedewed with the sweet drops of 
tearful memory, can never die. The delicate handiwork which 
the devotion of friends may scatter above his resting-place, may 
wither and die ; the wanton winds that moan through the dark 
shadows of the night may steal their fragrance, and the storms 
may thresh their delicate petals into fragments; time may oblit- 
erate the mottoes that mark his grave-stone, and this humble 
monument of affection may crumble to dust, but the name and the 
memory of William Stephen Weight will be ever dear to 
those who knew him and loved him while living; and they will 
enshrine it in their hearts as a lasting memorial. " He has fought 
the good fight." Here let him rest from his labors. 



END OF VOLUME III. 



The University Memorial. 

VOLUME IV — 1864. 



SUMMERFIELD SMITH, M. A., 

Captain, First Regiment Engineer Troops. 

SuMMERFiELD Smitii was boi'ii Oil tlic 5th of August^ 1836, at 
Leesburg, in Loudoun county, Virginia. Like liis celebrated 
namesake, John Summerfield, he gave early promise of more than 
ordinary talents. To those who marked his brief career, this 
promise seemed to be fully verified. Entering the University at 
the age of nineteen, he obtained in three sessions, and not without 
considerable distinction, the highest academic honor of the insti- 
tution ; receiving his degree as Master of Arts on the 29th of 
July, 1868, to which time the session had been prolonged because 
of an interruption in its course by an epidemic. The three years 
immediately following were spent in teaching; first in the school 
of his brother, Edward B. Smith, now Professor in Richmond 
College, and then, for two years, as assistant to one who had been 
his instructor at the University, the late Dr. Gessner Harrison. 
Several of his summer vacations were at the same time pleasantly 
and profitably spent in making geological explorations partly in 
the hill country of his native State, partly amidst the mountains 
of Vermont and eastern New York. To one such tour especially, 
made in company with a select party, among whom were Professor 
Clarke, of Columbian College, and Professor Brush, now of Yale 
College, and led by Colonel Jewett, he often afterwards referred 
as having combined in an eminent degree the healthful recreation 
needed by a tired teacher, the social pleasure of congenial com- 
pany, the intellectual enjoyment of scientific pursuit, and the 
])vactical knowledge of the world derived from seeing men under 
all circumstances. 

In September, 1861, in company Avith his younger brother 
Howard, he volunteered as a private in the famous Rockbridge 



1864.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 543 

Artillery, then commanded by Captain McLaughlin, and attached 
to the Stonewall Brigade. With this battery he served through 
Jackson's memorable winter campaign, including the forced 
marches over ice-covered roads, and amidst sleet and snow and 
bitter cold, on the expedition to Bath and Ilomney. His health, 
frail from early childhood, broke down undc the long-continued 
exposure and privation. He never fully recovered from the 
effects, though he soon considered himself fit for duty, and on the 
23d of March following participated in one of the most brilliant 
actions of the war — the battle of Kernstown — in which his com- 
pany with their field-pieces literally charged the enemy's infantry, 
and held for some time, witliout support, the advanced position. 

Some months subsequent to this event he was detailed as an 
engineer at the request of Captain, afterwards Colonel, Alfred L. 
Rives, acting Chief of the Bureau, who had then a high opinion of 
his attainments, and who, upon further acquaintance with him, 
became warmly interested in his promotion to the position for 
which his ability and devotion to duty plainly fitted him. He 
was soon commissioned a Lieutenant in the corps of engineers. 
Engaged at first mainly in making topographical surveys, he was soon 
entrusted with the more important and difficult problems of loca- 
tion and construction. Among the works successfully accomplished 
under his supervision was a bridge across the James, near Drurv's 
Bluff, built on piles, and fitted with a draw to allow the passage 
of gunboats and of the steamers engaged in exchanging prisoners. 
Thi3 structure^ adapted as it was to all tides, as well as the other 
works on which he was engaged, abundantly prove that one who 
brings to such duties a mind liberally and thoroughly trained, 
may soon equal and then rapidly surpass those whose education 
has been exclusively technical and professional. So highly were 
these services appreciated that when it was determined to organize 
for the Army of Northern Virginia a regiment of engineer troops, 
he was commissioned a Captain, and assigned to the division 
which had been led by Jackson, then by Ewell, and Avas now 
commanded by Major-General Edward Johnson. We are in- 
debted for most of the facts and incidents which follow to a diary 
kept by one who had been his class-mate at college, and was 
henceforth his Lieutenant and mess-mate in the field. 

On the 4th of June, 1863, Captain Smith reported for duty to 
General Johnson, and was assigned to command the pioneer corps 



544 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[March, 



of the division until a company of mechanics and others suitable 
for engineer troops could be selected and detailed from the different 
regiments. The next morning the "whole Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia was in motion for the expedition into Pennsylvania. During 
this march we find but few incidents worth recording. On Sat- 
urday, June 13th, appears in the diary above mentioned this 
entry : — 

" Moved at dawn with three days' rations. Rodes had taken the 
right the evening before, Early turned to the left towards New- 
town ; Johnson moved straight forward, the Stonewall Brigade being 
by request in front. Our order of march was, first a regiment 
which some miles from AVinchester deployed as skirmishers, then 
the pioneers, then Carpenter's battery, then the rest of the divi- 
sion." 

The next day Winchester was captured, and the army moved on 
again. On the 18th we find Captain Smith with his pioneers en- 
gaged through a severe thunder-storm, and up to twelve midnight, 
on the approaches and crossings of the Potomac and the Chesapeake 
and Ohio Canal between Shepherdstown, Virginia, and Sharps- 
burg, Maryland — a work with which the General next day "ex- 
pressed himself as highly pleased." From the record of the next 
two weeks, during which the army was moving without obstruction 
on macadamized roads, we make a few brief extracts, which seem 
to indicate the spirit of the times : — 

" 21st. . Couldn't help laughing aloud at seeing groups of men 
in citizen's dress. . . 

" 23d . Foraging is profitable, as everything is jjlenty, and 
one need give only so much money as he chooses. . . 

" 24^/i. . The people know nothing, and in politics are nothing. 
Some complain feebly. Three men only we have found who were 
really glad to see us — they had just been conscripted. . . 

" 25^/i. . Spent in camp. . Engaged in selecting men to fill out 
the company. . . 

" 27th. . Approaching Carlisle. . The citizens are terribly 
frightened, though few depredations are committed. One old 
fellow got oif a joke about our ' coming into the Union,' but most 
of them tremble as they speak." . . 

In the terrific battle of Gettysburg, July 1st to 3cl, we find our 
pioneers near the left wing — right much exposed but not actively 
engaged. For the next week we have an account of the retreat. 



j8(.4.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 545 

Officers and men alike wet with the almost continual rain, toiling 
wearily through mud and mountain, with very irregular and in- 
sufficient supplies of food and but little chance to sleep. On the 
10th, all the engineer force of the army was assembled under com- 
mand of Major Clarke, of the General Staff, to collect material and 
build boats for bridging the Potomac at Falling Waters. Captain 
Smith was selected by the Major commanding to assist him in 
drawing up plans and specifications for the boats, which they 
agreed to make " G by 18 feet at bottom, 7 by 30 feet at top, and 
3 feet deep, framed with seven bents and covered with two-inch 
plank, calculated to carry a span of twenty feet." While the 
pioneers were engaged in building these in the boat-yards of 
Williamsport, Maryland, he was again honox'cd in being selected 
to assist in locating and planning the construction of the proposed 
bridge. We find that, when complete, 

*'It consisted (beginning from the Virginia shore) of three 
spans on trestles, nine on regular pontoons — the remnant of our 
old pontoon train — fourteen on the new boats and three more on 
trestles, making in all about 550 feet long. The depth of water 
varied from six to ten feet, and the current was so strong that the 
bridge had to be stayed by a cable, in addition to the anchors, 
most of which were boxes 36x15 by 15 inches filled with stone." 

±iiis srructure, tijougn made ol sucii iui;Oijgiuu"Lio uuu lude 
materials, stood the severe test to which it was subjected in the 
crossing for thirty hours of one continuous stream of trains and 
troops, sometimes sunken almost to the water's edge by a line of 
artillery flanked on either side by columns of infantry. As soon 
as the bridge was ready for use Captain Smith was again selected 
to reconnoitre for a line of defence covering its approaches. His 
recommendations were approved, and forthwith the whole force 
was ordered out to construct under his direction the necessary 
earthworks. 

AVhen the army had safely crossed, he was again detained to 
assist in saving such portions of the bridge as seemed worth 
preserving, and in destroying the remainder. Thus for three days 
and nights of rainy weather he had little or no rest. Sunday 
night, July 12th, was spent at work on the bridge; Monday 
night, in keeping it in order and superintending the crossing of 
the troops; and Tuesday night, the 14th, in destroying the 
structure. The promptness, skill, and fidelity which ho then dis- 
35 



546 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[iilarch, 



played added no little to the enviable reputation as an engineer 
which he already enjoyed, but the fatigue, exposure, and above all, 
the anxiety which these services entailed, sowed the seeds of fatal 
disease. 

Though never thereafter entirely well, he remained with the 
army till the 6th of August. Meantime the plan for organizing 
the engineer troops was changed; all the men who had been 
detailed were returned to their respective regiments, and the 
officers were sent out to find recruits among the few men still left 
in the workshops of the country. As soon as Captain Smith 
returned from the field he was stricken down with a severe attack 
of sickness, and did not recover sufficiently to resume his duties 
until the middle of January following. At this time the regiment, 
now partially formed, occupied a camp of instruction near Rich- 
mond. On the 7th of February a party of Federal soldiers 
advanced towards the city, approaching so closely that their guns 
could be distinctly heard. This caused apprehensions of an 
enieute among the Federal prisoners, and all available forces were 
ordered out. The engineer troops, called from their comfortable 
winter-quarters, had to bivouac for several days on a bleak hill 
overlooking the prison-camp on Belle Isle. Captain Smith was 
at the time suffi;ring with a severe and obstinate headache, which 
he attributed to neuralgia. Visiting the residence of his brother, 
Major Edward B. Smith, then on ordnance duty in tlio city, he 
was pressed to remain, in view of his suffering condition and of 
the great exposure of the service before him. Ho replied, with 
characteristic devotion and firmness, that if he went into sick 
quarters at such a time, when just ordered upon an exposed and 
possibly dangerous service, he would seem to his men willing to 
shirk his duty. Thus deliberately, as we too sadly know in the 
light of the then fast-coming events, on that wintry and dreary 
day, he turned away from the comforts and attentions of a home, 
doubly grateful and needful in his weakened condition, and chose 
death rather than the appearance of failure in duty. 

In a very few days he was carried back to his brotlier's house, 
suffering severely. He remained there a week, and though really 
too sick to travel, his longing to get home was so great that 
he was allowed to start; but by the time he reached the house 
of his eldest brother. Professor Francis H.Smith, at the University 
of Virginia, the symptoms of his disease had become of an unmis- 



jgr,,] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 547 

takably typhoid character. In a day or two delirium supervened, 
and he expired on the 2d of March, 1864. 

In person, Summerfield Smith was rather fine-looking than 
handsome. His frame was well-proportioned and somewhat 
above the usual stature. His fair skin, light hair, remarkably broad 
brow, bluish-gray eyes, well-shapen nose, fine rhetorical mouth, 
and smooth chin, made up a face at once striking and attractive- 
A noticeable feature was the broad mouth, encompassed as it was 
by thin, flexible lips, which habitually indicated resolute deter- 
mination, but readily relaxed into a pleasant smile. 

The excellent temper and quality of his mind may be inferred 
from what has already been said. His rare conversational powers 
deserve to be specially mentioned. No one was more welcome in 
the social circle gathered round a blazing camp-fire or assembled 
in a lady's drawing-room, for none could bring a better fund of 
sprightly wit, cultivated taste, and extensive general information. 
It was not this alone, however, which, during his short life, drew 
to him so many friends from among the best and noblest young- 
men of our land ; it was chiefly because they found in him a kin- 
dred spirit, a genial nature, and an uncalculating devotion. He 
was a dutiful son, an affectionate brother, and a faithful friend. 
Ambitious without envy, brave but not reckless, decided yet never 
impolite, conscientious in everything, lie exhibited a character and 
bearing worthy of all imitation. His faults — and his most inti- 
mate associates rarely saw them — were those of an impulsive and 
generous heart. So strict was his attention to religious duty that 
not even amid the distractions of the camp or the weariness of 
the march did he omit to read the AVord of God and bow in secret 
prayer. 

In this connection, a brotlier, who loved, admired, and was 
proud of him, claims, under the title of that affection and esteem, 
the privilege of adding hero a testimony to his many virtues : — 
'* Out of no small circle of men, the writer of these lines never 
knew one with a finer sense of uprightness and honor than was 
possessed by Summerfield Smith — a sense that made him recoil 
from any act about which the slightest doubt of its rectitude could 
be suggested. A magnanimous gentleman, he was far above all 
self-seeking; his was a generous hand and strong but tender 
nature. In his brief career he acquired no wide renown, it may 
be : but the devoted esteem of loyal liearts, Avhich is tiie only 



548 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[May, 



eartlily reward worth striving for, the only conquest that endures 
and repays the costliest sacrifice of self, he won and held till death ; 
and it ever survives to keep his memory green in all the hearts 
that loved him. His purity of thought, and consequently of life, 
was one of the most remarkable traits of his exemplary character. 
With whatever doubts assailed, he had a true faith in Christ, and 
has most surely proved the truth of that Divine beatitude, 
'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' 

"Some who read these lines will recall him with tender recol- 
lections. If any — viewing the dark Providence wliich swept 
from our commonwealth, in their early manhood, so many noble 
sons like him^ — are inclined to call their end untimely, we may 
and must confide the inscrutable issue to the Master, who takes 
the Avorkman but provides for the work. Meanwhile it is con- 
soling to reflect that those lives, however short, are crowned with 
honor, which set us briglit examples of purity and truth, and give 
new meaning to the old-time words, friendship, patriotism^ and 
religion" 



1st Lieutenaut, Company B, 10th Virginia Infantry. 

George B. Kemper was the son of Dr. George W. Kemper, 
Jr., of Port Republic, Rockingham county, Virginia, and Mary 
Angeline Brown, of Albemarle county, Virginia — his father a 
physician of high standing, and his mother, deceased many years 
ago, a woman loved by all for her many virtues, and more 
especially for the great liberality and gentleness of her character, 
her good sense and affectionate disposition. 

George was born in Albemarle on the 7lli of March, 1841, 
and at an early age gave such indications of talent as to deter- 
mine his father to give him a thorough collegiate education. In 
pursuance of this design he was first placed, in 1855, in charge of 
his uncle, C. J. Kemper, under whose tuition he remained for one 
session, and made such proficiency, and showed so great fondness 
of study, especially of mathematics and kindred subjects, that his 
father was earnestly recommended to spare no expense to give 
him the best opportunity to complete his academic course. 



jgy^-j THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 549 

Subsequently he attended the schools of Mr. Powers, Staunton, 
Virginia; of Dr. Charles Minor, Brook Hill, Albemarle, Vir- 
ginia, and of Professor White, at Mossy Creek Academy, Augusta, 
Virginia, in all of which he acquitted himself with distinction 
and with a high reputation for scholarship. In October, 1859, 
he entered the University of Virginia, and graduated that session 
in mathematics and French. The next session he was found still 
attending lectures at the University ; but the initiatory movements 
of the impending war having been taken, he felt it incumbent 
upon him to volunteer for the defence of his native State, and of 
those sacred rights which had been bequeathed to her people by a 
noble ancestry. 

Not waiting for the close of the session, he volunteered in May 
as a private soldier in Company B, Rockingham Rifles, of the 10th 
Virginia Regiment, commanded at first by the lamented Colonel 
Gibbon, who fell at McDowell, and afterwards by Colonel E. T. 
H. Warren, who was also subsequently killed at the head of his 
command. In the same company was his elder brother. Lieu- 
tenant W. M. Kemper, who for coolness and intrepidity in battle 
was highly complimented by his superior officers, and who, 
occupying an advanced position, was killed almost instantly at 
the battle of Chancellorsville, falling, it is said, into the arms of 
his brother George, who had scarcely time to lay him down in 
death before he was himself taken prisoner. This imprisonment 
was, however, of short duration, and he was soon again by the 
side of his old comrades in arms, battling for that cause in whose 
justice he believed with heart and soul. 

He passed unscathed through the decisive battles of the Valley 
campaign under Jackson, followed his standards in the bloody 
fights around Richmond, at Manassas, and' Ciiancellorsville, and 
accompanied General Ewell in the Maryland campaign. Finally, 
in the gallant discharge of his duty, acting as 1st Lieutenant, to 
which post he had been elected to fill the vacancy occasioned by 
the death of his brother, he fell, instantly killed, on the 5th of 
May, 1864, at the battle of the Wilderness, a martyr to what he 
believed to be right, and deeply lamented by all of his command. 

In personal appearance Lieutenant Kemper was rather hand- 
some than otherwise, tall, with dark hair and blue eyes, and with 
a prepossessing though somewhat reserved manner. He appeared 
to have little of that kind of ambition which seeks alone for honor 



550 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[May, 



on the selfish principle of vanity or personal aggrandizement, and 
must have been elected to the position he held from a true appre- 
ciation of his merits by those who fought by his side. His moral 
character was spotless, liis integrity unflinching, his manners 
affable when his diffidence was overcome, and his disposition 
quiet and unobtrusive, seldom ruffled by any annoyance. 

As a student he was very calm and patient : hence his acquire- 
ments were thorough, based as they were upon a close examina- 
tion of the subjects which engaged his attention. 

He was, in fine, the pride of his family, beloved by all his 
friends, respected by all who knew him, and lamented and still 
remembered with feeling and affection by the few brave hearts 
who survive the fiery ordeal of patriotism through which they 
passed by his side, under the mutual inspiration of confidence 
and esteem. As long as the memories of the ennobled dead shall 
be cherished — as long as the surviving followers of the man of 
iron will and sublime faith revert with deep feeling, intermingled 
with pride, to the noble deeds of daring and suffering of their 
companions in arms, so long will all who knew him also, as 
friend and comrade, remember with thoughtful sadness his un- 
timely end. 

His remains, with those of his brother, were gathered to the 
old family burying-ground, by the side of a once loving mother, 
to await in turn the coming of those who were near and dear to 
him. Like numberless of the Confederate dead, no marble mon- 
ument marks his resting-place. Perhaps the flowers strewed 
upon the graves of our dead by the hands of the noble women of 
the South were a more fitting memorial ; for, in the beautiful 
language of "Washington Irving, — "The hand strews the flower 
while the heart is warm, and the tear fells on the grave while 
affection is binding the osier round the sod ; but pathos expires 
under the slow labor of the chisel, and is chilled among the cold 
conceits of sculptured marble." 



ISH.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 551 

WILLIAM WELLFORD RANDOLPH, 

Lieutenant-Colonel, Commanding the 2d Virginia Infantry. 

Among tlie brave Virginians who fell victims to their love of 
country in the recent struggle, none is entitled to a higher place 
in the admiration and affection of his countrymen than Colonel 
William W. Randolph, of the 2d Virginia Infantry, Stone- 
wall brigade. Young when he fell, and having had but a brief 
space to exhibit those great qualities which encircle the heads of 
their possessors with a halo of glory, he yet made upon all who 
came within the circle of his influence a profound impression, and 
lives to-day in the hearts of many as one of the noblest types of 
a great and courageous race. 

Colonel Randolph was the second son of Dr. Robert Carter 
and Lucy Nelson Randolph, and was born at ' New Market," the 
estate of his father in Clarke county, Virginia, February 20, 
1837. In 1845 he went to school at Oak Grove Academy, near 
the neighboring village of Millwood, where he received the rudi- 
ments of his education from Mr, Samuel Schooler. Mr. Schooler 
subsequently left the Oak Grove Academy to associate himself 
with Mr. Lewis M. Coleman, of the Hanover Academy, when 
the subject of our sketch followed him thither, pursuing his course 
of studies there, and establishing a reputation for talents and high 
character with scholars and teachers. Thence he passed to the 
University of Virginia, and at the expiration of his term there 
returned to Clarke county, when he took charge of the Oak 
Grove Academy on the 1st of September, 1856 Here he re- 
mained until 1858, when he was offered a position in Colonel 
Kemper's school at Alexandria, Virginia, at ^vhich place he took 
up his residence. 

His chosen career was the law. and he studied for the bar with 
great diligence, bending every faculty to acquire excellence in a 
profession which seems to have enlisted all his sympathies. It is 
a subject of additional regret to the friends who mourn him, that he 
was not spared to enter upon the great arena of legal and forensic 
struggle. His intellectual and moral organization peculiarly fitted 
him for the forum : the clear brain, the vigorous judicial faculties, 
the magnetic power M^hich is called " force of character," these 
would, beyond all doubt, have made him eminent in the profes- 
sion he had chosen. 



552 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [May, 

To his legal studies at Alexandria he added literaiy and 
scientific investigations; never becoming, however, a pale and 
care-worn student, as so many do, but paying, on the contrary, 
very unusual attention to his physical health and development. 
He pursued, along with his mental work, a systematic course of 
gymnastics, and manly exercises generally ; and thus developed in 
the highest degree his energies, both of mind and body. When 
the war broke out, it found him in the bloom of a manhood, every 
faculty of which, mental and physical, had been trained as the 
athlete is trained for some great struggle. 

With 1861 commenced the career of Colonel Randolph as a 
soldier : that career, illustrated by a courage and devotion so emi- 
nent as to attract to him the admiration and affection of all who 
have heard of his name. He at once abandoned all other pursuits, 
and enlisting as a private in the " Nelson Rifles," a company of 
infantry from the neighborhood of Millwood, marched on the 18th 
of April, 1861, to Harper's Ferry, where his company, commanded 
by that brave soldier and gentleman, Captain William N. Nelson, 
took part in the earliest scenes ot the war. The manoeuvring of 
Johnston and Patterson in the lower Valley followed, and then 
the rapid passage ot the Blue Ridge by the former to join Beaure- 
gard at Manassas. In this hard-fought battle, the Nelson Rifles, 
officially designated as " Company C, 2d Virginia Regiment," 
bore a prominent part, carrying with their comrades the crest of 
the Henry House liill which gave us victory ; and in this, as in 
all other movements of the company the subject of our sketch 
was foremost. One-third of the company were killed or wounded 
at Manassas; among others the gallant Captain Nelson, who was 
borne from the field mortally wounded, as all supposed, though he 
afterwards recovered in a measure, but not sufficiently to resume 
command When the reorganization in the spring took place, 
private Randolph was unanimously elected to take his place ; and 
on this occasion a trifling incident occurred, exhibiting very 
forcibly his energy and promptness. One evening just preceding 
the election, a loud noise was heard in camp, and going to the 
spot, William Randolph discovered two or three men of 
the company cruelly beating a negro, whom they had thrown 
down and had completely in their power. He immediately inter- 
posed and succeeded in rescuing the negro at the risk of having to 
fight his assailants. The matter passed off — was forgotten by 



1864.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 553 



him; and only on the morning of the election, when the company- 
were drawn up in line for the choice of a new Captain, did he 
ascertain that the persecutors of the unfortunate negro had been 
busily maligning him in the dark. They had used the young 
man's interposition in the cause of liumanity as a lever against 
him ; represented him as disposed to take the part of negroes 
against white men ; and a strong ^'drty was thus formed to defeat 
him in the election for Captain. It was only on the morning of 
the election, as we have said, when the company was drawn up to 
vote, that this plot came to his knowledge, and he ascertained the 
character of the charge against him. His course was prompt. 
As soon as silence was obtained, he stepped from his place in the 
ranks, addressed the men, informing them of the true state of the 
case in the matter of the negro ; stigmatized any other statement 
as a malicious lie, and offered to decide the matter by meeting his 
assailants then and there and fighting it out. This straightfor- 
ward and manly proposition was not accepted, the young man's 
enemies were completely silenced, and he was unanimously 
elected Caj^tain of the company. 

Thenceforward he went with Jackson on all his celebrated 
marches, and participated in all the bloody battles which have 
rendered valley and lowland in Virginia so famous. At 
Kernstown, Winchester, Port Republic, the Seven Days' battles 
around Richmond, Fredericksburg, Ciiancellorsville; then, after 
Jackson's death, at Gettysburg, and in the Spotsylvania Wilder- 
ness, he made a record among the most glorious and brilliant of 
the war. It was somethino: to be noted among: the soldiers of the 
army in Virginia for courage, but this high distinction Captain 
Randolph won. Tiie sentiment of fear seems never to have 
entered his heart, and he exposed his person "in battle habitually 
with such reckless disregard of consequences that his preservation 
seemed a miracle. It is said that his friends and associates began 
to look upon him at last as bearing "a charmed life," Avliich no 
bullet would ever terminate. There was some ground for the 
belief. He seemed to have secured some "armor against fate." 
A comrade says of him : — " He was so conspicuously gallant in all 
the fights that I ever saw him in, that it would be hard to dis- 
criminate. At Gettysburg, perhaps, he was a trifle more gallant 
(if it was possible) than usual. When we had used up all our 
ammunition in repulsing a charge the second day, he went back 



554 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[May, 



under a terrific fire of musketry and artillery, when it was almost 
certain death, and brought up Jiis gum-clotll»fnll of ammunition, 
which enabled us to drive the Yankees from their first line of 
works in disorder ; and then monnting the breastworks, he called 
upon the brigade to follow him. Had the w'hole brigade gone, 
the Yankees at that (right) wing would have been routed." 

Another incident of this same battle is thus related. The 
writer, speaking of Captain Randolph, says : — " The part of the 
line he was on was suffering from a tremendous concentrated fire 
from the enemy's artillery and infantry, so severe that the men 
crowded close under the breastworks, and could not be induced by 
entreaties or threats to rise and repel a charge about to be made by 
the massed infantry of the enemy. Seeing the danger, the Captain 
sprang upon the breastworks and coolly walked up and down 
among a tempest of balls to inspire the troops with courage by 
his example. Such was the effect produced by this heroic exhibi- 
tion, that one of the men of a North Carolina regiment lying 
near, rushed from the ranks to his side, crying out, ' For God's 
sake. Captain, come down ! — you are too brave a man to be killed 
in this way ! ' The appeal was unheeded. He persisted in main- 
taining his perilous position, seeming determined there to die. 
The enemy's charge was made. Our men could not resist this 
example of courage, caught the inspiration, sprung from their 
covert, delivered a deadly fire, and hurled back the foe in confusion 
and disorder to their entrenchments." 

In the year 1863 Captain Randolph was elected to the Virginia 
Legislature, and represented Clarke in the session of that winter, 
where his ability and usefulness were soon displayed. An im- 
portant event in his life belongs to the same period. " This 
retirement from camp duties," says a paper before us, " for a short 
interval, while the armies w-ere in winter quarters, afforded him 
an opportunity w^hich he had long and anxiously hoped for, to 
consummate a union with the plighted partner of his heart's ten- 
derest affections, with whom, for a few short months, he was spared 
to enjoy that happiness which he had anticipated as a consolation 
after all the toils and dangers of war should be passed." He was 
married on the 9th of September to Miss Ada Stuart, daughter of 
Dr. Richard Stuart, of Cedar Grove, King George county, Vir- 
ginia. But with the adjournment of the Legislature and the first 
movements for the spring campaign in April, 1864, Cai^tain 



1SC4] THE UXIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 555 

Randolph hastened to return to his regiment. At this time the 
Colonel of the 2cl Virginia Infantry was on post duty at Staunton, 
having been relieved from active service in consequence of a 
disabling disease; the Lieuteuant-Colonel had been killed; the 
regiment was without a commander; and under these cir(!um- 
stances it became necessary to appoint one. Captain Randolph 
received the appointment — a compliment resulting from the very 
urgent representations and high recommendations of his superior 
officers ; and the more valuable from the fact that there were others 
in the regiment who ranked him. 

The assignment of the young officer to the command of the 2d 
Virginia was a compliment highly appreciated by himself and his 
friends; l)ut a sentiment of painful apprehension — a species of 
mournful presentiment of coming woe — entered more than one 
heart. Three commanding officers of the 2d Virginia had fallen 
at the bead of that heroic regiment : the position seemed to be that 
"path of glory " which "leads but to the grave"; and ^when 
Colonel Randolph accepted it, many felt as though his doom 
was already sealed. All who were at all acquainted with his 
character knew his reckless courage and that heroic nerve of the 
man which shrank from nothing. Thus the general sentiment of 
his family and friends was a painful one. But to swerve so much 
as a hair's-breadth from the path of duty was not possible with 
such a man. Rejoicing at the well-merited promotion which^he 
had at last received as the reward of long, arduous, and devoted 
services, Colonel Randolph took command of the hard-fighting 
old regiment as one born for leadershi|) ; and it was soon called 
upon to march and meet the enemy. On the morning of the 5th 
of May, 1864, Grant's vast force had crossed the Rapidan, and 
Ewell's corps, of which the Stonewall brigade was a part, ad- 
vanced down the old turnpike in the direction of Chancellorsville 
to meet the enemy. The opposing forces soon came into collision, 
and the 2d Virginia held the extreme left, where it met, without 
flinching, a determined attack of the Federal forces, both.in front 
and flank. Colonel Randolph was here, as everywhere, the 
guiding head and source of inspiration to all the troops under 
him. " Xo one could have seen him moving fearlessly," says a 
comrade, " to the most exposed points of that fiery circle without 
a fresh inspiration of courage and a conviction that he was born 
to command." Born, alas ! to lay down his invaluable life, no 



556 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[May, 



less, for the land he loved so well. His hours were already num- 
bered, and in this first collision of the opposing forces in the last 
great campaign his record was to terminate — his young life to 
end in a blaze of martial glory. At about 2 o'clock in the after- 
noon, and while leading his men in a charge, a bullet struck him 
in the head, and he was borne from the field by his brother Robert, 
and his friends, Philip .Nelson and Mord. Lewis, mortally wounded. 
In two hours he was dead — without suffering, and trusting to the 
last in the mercy of his Redeemer. 

His remains were taken to Charlottesville, where they were de- 
posited with martial ceremony in the University Cemetery, 
" beside General Ashby, Colonel Colston, and a private from the 
regiment which he commanded. He was carried to his last home 
by dear friends, and committed to the earth with that dear, sweet, 
hope-inspiring burial-service which he had read to his wife only 
two Sundays before." There in the quiet cemetery the remains 
of the brave soldier rested until after the war, when they were 
exhumed, and borne to the Old Chapel graveyard, in Clarke 
county, where they now repose beside the ashes of relatives and 
friends who fell, like himself, in defence of one of the noblest 
causes of history. 

Such is the unadorned record of the career of the noble young 
Virginian. Such a recital, necessarily brief, and touching upon 
the mere dates and leading events, must always be unsatisfactory, 
especially to those who personally knew the original. For behind 
the naked statement, the dry and incomplete record, is the living, 
breathing individual, whose face and form and character survive 
in memory. These lines can give no adequate idea of William 
Randolph. It was one of the bravest of the brave who 
thus followed Jackson in all his hard campaigns; marching, 
musket on shoulder, in the ranks; who mounted the works at 
Gettysburg, and faced the fire unmoved ; who was everywhere in 
the fore-front of battle, leading, cheering, and inspiring all ; and 
who fell at last on the bloody field of the Wilderness, soon after 
uttering the grand words : — " Jesus can receive the soul of the 
warrior on the battle-field as well as on the softest couch." 

Of the mere attribute of courage we could give, if necessary, a 
hundred instances. It is the amount of this testimony which ex- 
cludes it, and we present but a paragraph or two : — the first from 
a letter of General Terry, the last commander of the Stonewall 



1864.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 557 



brigade, to Dr. Randolpli, after the death at Cedar Creek, in 
October, 1864, of Captain Robert Randolph, a younger brother 
of our subject : — 

"I knew your sons, William and Robert, well;" writes 
General Terry. " I am proud to say they were my intimate, 
personal friends. They possessed my unbounded confidence as 
friends, as gentlemen, and as soldiers. No man has given to the 
Confederate cause two better soldiers and more gallant gentlemen. 
As the brigade commander, I feel their loss ; and deeply have I to 
regret the fall of Lieutenant-Colonel Willam W. Randolph, so 
soon after his promotion to a position which, I feel assured, he 
would have filled with distinguished credit to himself and the 
service. I was looking forward to the day when still further 
honors awaited your sons. While you have cause to sorrow over 
their early graves, yet you have reason to be proud to know that 
they fell where duty called, at the head of their commands. 
They fell by no random shot, but where the fire was the hottest." 

" As an officer," says Major R. W. Hunter, in an eloquent 
eulogy delivered upon the character of his dead friend and asso- 
ciate, in the Virginia Legislature, " as an officer, Colonel Ran- 
dolph possessed the entire confidence of those above and below 
him. With my own ears I have heard the great Jackson speak 
"lU 11 js piaibe, aiiu jiiS iiiii-ue aua ciuiiijg ueeus uic bmi tuemcs 
around the camp-fire of his regiment." To this we add the elo- 
quent words of another friend : — " The very soul of the Confed- 
eracy was in him." 

Such was the character, most briefly depicted, of Colonel Ran- 
dolph, the soldier. He was brave among the bravest; shrunk 
from nothing in his path ; but this mere courage of the soldier 
was the least beautiful of his traits. Beneath thfc gray coat which 
defined the simple outer man, if we may so express it, was the 
human being of heart so warm, true, generous, and noble, that 
those who knew him best may almost be said to have thought 
least of him as a mere f.3ldier; valuing more the character of the 
man in his private life than the faculties and fame of the officer. 
Of this private and unofficial character, the writer of this page 
had ample knowledge; and going back to-day in memory to the 
past, can recall no human being, among all encountered in this 
world, endowed with qualities more calculated to endear one to 
his species. Firm in his loves and friendships, utterly true and 



558 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[May, 



reliable, so that you could always count upon his word ; making 
no professions which he did not feel ; cool, resolute, determined to 
fincl what was I'ight, and to pursue it careless of consequences ; 
giving his heart with his hand, scorning falsehood, and hating it 
with a perfect hatred ; he was a true man in the fullest sense of that 
word. 

Of the mere intellectual faculties, those who knew him had a 
very high estimate. His mind was one of extraordinary vigor, 
and he saw clearly into every subject, possessing in no ordinary 
decree that '^judicial intellect" which makes great lawyers and 
celebrated judges. At the bar he must have taken a very high 
rank. 

Of Colonel Randolph in his private character, too, much 
might be said. A friend writes: — "He had the most untiring 
and dauntless energy I ever saw, the clearest views of complicated 
questions, and withal, such a grand and noble simplicity of char- 
acter and total freedom from guile, that it brings tears to my dim 
eyes to think of him as I saw him last, so hopeful, so self-reliant, 
so brave, so tender, so true." A hundred such passages might be 
quoted, referring to the individual at every period of his life, from 
the time when, at Hanover Academy, Mr. Lewis Coleman 
spoke of him to his old pastor as '*' a magnificent boy," to the 
moment when over his lifeless body strong men wept, saluting him 
as one of the great Commonwealth which gave him birth ; but for 
these details we have no space. 

We shall terminate this sketch by some quotations from his 
letters to his mother and another person very dear to him, which 
display in an unmistakable light that crowning grace of manhood 
— perfect reliance upon God, and a sure realization of the only 
source from which he could expect hope and happiness. We pre- 
sent these passages without comment. Let the careless reader not 
omit a perusal of them. In every line a pure spirit speaks and 
shows the loveliness of trust and humility. 

From "Newtown, March 23d, 1862. Tell Ma that I thought 
of her and her teachings; and that if she does hear of my fall, she 
must not think of me as one who died without hope." 

'^ April lOth, 1862. In the thickest of the fight I know that 
God can hear the silent prayer of the greatest sinner, and through 
the blood of Him who saved the dying thief upon the cross, can 
in like manner translate the soul of the warrior from the battle- 
field to a sinless, happy home in heaven." 



18g4.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 559 

"December 11th, 1862. We are on the verge of a great battle 
or a retreat. .... I trust that, if I fill, the great Father of 
Spirits will take me to Himself, sinner though I am, through the 
merits of a Saviour whose love I have so often slighted." 

"March 14th, 1863. You must pray for me, as I know you 
do. I feel, somehow, a need whicli cannot be supplied in this 

world Yes, it may be the first whisperings of that 

mysterious voice whose power can yet turn my heart from its 
stubborn sinfulness, and to that Power I go, with humbler heart 
and deeper prayer than ever before." 

"Ilarch olst, 1863. These days in camp seem very dreary to 

me separated from you You must redouble your prayers 

for me, that I may be drawn to Christ. I feel more on this sub- 
ject than ever before in my life. It is a hard struggle to me, and 
you cannot know fully the hopeless feeling of one who has been 
for years so sinful as I have been. But the promise of our Saviour 
is to the vilest of sinners, and I feel that I am one of them. I 
have been and am so wicked that I feel as if it is almost impious 
in me to approach the Throne of Grace and hope for mercy. I 
trust to be spared to atone, in some measure, in the future for the 
past; but if God in His wisdom takes me from you, we will hope 
to meet in that bright world for which you are so well fitted, and 
for which atoning grace may prepare me." 

'' 3Iay 2d, 1864. The sweet bright days are gone, and now the 

stern work of war is to begin You must not be more 

uneasy than you can possibly help . . . but above all, remember 
that in any event I humbly hope and believe that we will meet 
again in heaven." 

■ " 3Iay 3c?, 1864. We have everything to be thankful for since this 
time last year ; let us trust Him for the future. I intend to try 
and live so that if I am taken we may meet as we must do in 
that world where there is no more parting, and where sin and 
sorrow are unknown." 

The spirit of trustfulness in the living Redeemer — that spirit 
whose gradual development may be traced, if we mistake not, in 
those touching words — is the crowning grace of a noble character. 

Do we exaggerate when we say that the death of such a man 
was a sore and bitter loss, not only to his friends and family, but 
to his native land as well? The brain to conceive, the heart to 
dare, the hand to execute — all these went down with him and 



560 THE UXTVEESITY ME]MOETAL. ^y^,^^ 

are lost to us to-day. The great old Commonwealth has not yet 
lost, it may be, the " breed of noble minds ; " but none of her living 
sons possess a grander organization than the young soldier whose 
great qualities we have here so inadequately depicted. 



JOHN THOMPSON BROWN, 

Colonel of the First Regiment of Virginia Artillery. 

John Thompson Brown was born in tlie city of Petersburg 
on the 6th of February, 1835, and bore the full name of that dis- 
tinguished father whose early death fell like a sliadow on the State 
to whose service he had dedicated his splendid powers. Emulating 
the higli example of such a father, the son (the subject of this 
memoir) was assiduous in his studies, his general education con- 
cluding with a course of three years at the University of Virginia, 
where he graduated with distinction in many of the schools. 
After an extended tour in Europe, he returned to Virginia and 
devoted himself to the legal profession with a constant zeal and a 
generous ambition which gave ample assurance of reward and dis- 
tinction, lie VvuS uaijuiLLcti to tiie OdC in j.ou6, unU in uiie Spiillg 

of the same year was united to Miss Mary M. Southall, of Char- 
lottesville, and thus commenced his manly career under the hap- 
piest auspices and with every reasonable hope and prospect of 
fortune, fame, and happiness. 

A sense of duty induced him to volunteer as a private when 
troops were ordered in 1859 to Harper's Ferry for the suppression 
of the John Brown raid ; and lie exhibited such soldierly talents 
and powers of endurance, together Avith those generous qualities 
for which he had always been distinguished, that he was elected 
by a highly flattering vote to a Lieutenancy in the howitzer com- 
pany in which he served ; but with the exception of this episode, 
the brio-ht current of his life was scarcely disturbed until actual 
war came with its terrible disillusions, bringing sorrow, destruc- 
tion, and calamity in its train. 

He was among tlie very first to step forward and offer his ser- 
vices to his native State, and went (after a brief sojourn in the 
camp of instruction) to Yorktown with a portion of the 2d How- 



I 






i-^^O^-i-^V' 7yl^^/.J'2^'-Z^' 



ISi;;.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOrxIAL. 561 

itzers, in which he had been made 2d Lieutenant. He liad but 
just arrived, on tlie 7th of May, 1861, when he was ordered to 
cross to Gloucester Point, and in less than an liour had a sharp 
engagement with a Federal gunboat, tlie "Yankee," in command 
of Lieutenant Selfridge (now Captain Selfridge, U. S. N.). The 
engagement lasted only about twenty minutes, Brown's men 
working their guns on the oj)en beach, and resulted in driving the 
gunboat, (which was struck several times), back to the bay. Lieu- 
tenant Brown's guns were one four-pounder rifled Dahlgren gun 
and one twelve-pounder boat-howitzer; but they were so well 
handled that Mr. Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, who was on 
board of tlie " Yankee," afterwards published in the New York 
Herald an account of the action, and stated that the vessel was fired 
on from works mounted with Co lamb lads ! 

On the following day Brown was elected Captain of the 2d 
Howitzers; and about the latter part of May his command was 
ordered across the river to Yorktown, where he was shortly after 
joined by Major G. W. Randolph, who brought the 3d Company 
(Captain Stanard) with him, the 1st Company (Captain Shields) 
having been ordered to Manassas. The battle of Bethel followed 
on the 10th of June, and Captain Brown's command, under his 
own immediate supervision, was constantly engaged throughout 
that brilliant engagement. One who served with him on that 
occasion writes that a more vigilant and dauntless officer he never 
saw. It was thus his fortune to be engaged in both the actions 
which marked the opening of the war in Virginia. About the 
25th of August he was present at the burning of Hampton, 
ordered by General Magruder, and accomplished, as we may say, 
under the very guns of Fortress Monroe. These were the only 
prominent events of the earlier portion of the pennisular campaign ; 
but Captain Brown was indefatigable in the discharge of his daily 
and regular duties, and was constantly engaged in every scouting 
expedition and reconnoissance ordered by the "ubiquitous com- 
mander," General Magruder. 

Captain Brown was made Major in the month of September, 
and in the spring of the following year became Lieutenant-Colonel 
of artillery. His health had been seriously impaired by the 
damps and malaria of the region in which he had been operating, 
and the undue exposure resulting from the frequent change of 
camps, which made it impossible to provide for the health and 
3G 



562 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. " ^-^^^.^ 

comfort of the army, and as a consequence he had a severe attack 
' of inflammatory rheumatism ; but such was his devotion to duty 
that he left his command but once, and that only for a week. 
In April, 1862, his old company presented him with a handsome 
sword, as a testimonial of their affection and admiration. 

Magruder's army was now reinforced by Johnston, Longstreet, 
and Smith, to meet McClellan's advance by way of the peninsula; 
and, while there were no regular engagements, ' the physical 
endurance of the Southern troops was sorely tried as they lay 
for more than a month in the trenches under heavy and constant 
cannonading. Colonel Brown's letters written during this try- 
ing season, display a noble spirit of steadfast and uncomplaining 
devotion to duty. There are no murmurs; every inconvenience 
and discomfort is accepted as inevitable, and constant gratitude is 
expressed for preservation from sickness or harm. On the 17th 
of April he writes : — " This morning two men were killed within 
five feet of me. We had a terrible fight last night, the enemy 
charging a part of our lines three times, but each time repulsed." 
On the 26th of the same month he says : — " Oar array will do its 
duty, although it has to contend against enormous odds." * May 
10th : — " I am virtually in command of all the artillery in the 
second corps, amounting to sixty-four pieces." On the 27th : — 
" The enemy in large force are within ten miles of us. Our 
troops have fallen back, and we will fight here. I shall have 
command of the artillery on the line between Lee's Mill and 
Yorktown. General Magruder has shown a great deal of confi- 
dence in me in this emergency, and I shall endeavor to prove 
worthy of it." 

"With the exception of the " affair at Williamsburg," there was 
only a succession of skirmishes until the army was entrenched at 
Richmond. In the battle of Seven Pines a portion of Beown's 
command was engaged, and lost heavily ; and on the day succeed- 
ing the battle he was promoted to the rank of Colonel — the gifted 
and lamented Lewis Minor Coleman succeeding to the Lieutenant- 
Colonelcy. Colonel Brown's command was placed in the reserve, 
under General Pendleton, and did not, as far as we know, partici- 
pate in the " Seven Days' Battles " around Richmond ; but after 
McClellan had retreated to Harrison's Landing, Colonel Brown, 

* McClellan's forces at this time must have outnumbered the Southern army at 
least three to one. 



lSfi4.] 



THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 563 



under an order from General Lee, was entrusted with the respon- 
sible and dangerous duty of making a night attack on the fleet of 
transports lying at that point in James River. In company with 
his friend and faithful auxiliary, Captain David Watson, he made 
a careful reconnoissance during the day, and after nightfall pro- 
ceeded as rapidly and noiselessly as possible to get his guns into 
position. It is easier to imagine than describe the utter conster- 
nation of the enemy when Colonel Brown's sudden and unex- 
pected cannonade commenced. The writer once heard from Colonel 
Brown an amusing description of the affair, and of the commo- 
tion he produced. At one moment, lie said, tlie vessels were 
resting upon the waters in perfect stilhiess, a thousand lights 
twinkling in the darkness, and utter silence prevailing ; at the 
next, as by one hand every light was extinguished, a stir and hum 
pervaded the whole fleet, as though it were preparing to slip cable 
and escape from this terrible attack and invisible enemy. No 
serious damage was done beyond the wholesome terror inspired, 
and nothing more could reasonably have been expected ; but this 
does not detract in the slightest degree from the credit due to 
Colonel Brown and his associates for the skill, energy, and daring 
so conspicuously displayed in this attack. 

In August, 18G2, Colonel Brown, with five or six of his com- 
panies (Watson's, Hupp's, Smith's, Brooke's, Dance's), moved from 
their encampment at Hare's Hill, near Petersburg, and joined the 
Array of Northern Virginia at Leesburg, just after the second 
battle of Manassas, being still attached to General Pendleton's 
reserves; but shortly after the battle of Sharpsburg, in conjunction 
with General J. E. B. Stuart (the whola command embracing 1000 
cavalry, about 300 infantry, and Colonel Brown's companies), a 
diversion was made by crossing the Potomac at Williamsport. 
Against this force McClellan sent Couch's division, and there Avas 
heavy skirmishing throughout a whole day. Subsequently there 
was quite a sharp artillery duel below Charlostown, resulting in 
many casualties. After this Colonel Brown's command lay in- 
active so long as to produce the only complaint he uttered during 
the war, exhibited in a letter he wrote to his superior oflicer asking 
a transfer to General D. II. Hill's division, on the ground that his 
"batteries had been recently but very little in action, and that 
they as well as himself desired to be more actively engaged, if 
compatible with the public service." This request, though 



564 THE ITNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. ^-vxy, 

" earnestly recommended " by General D. H. Hill, and " ap- 
proved " by Stonewall Jackson, (demonstrating the high estimate 
these eminent men had formed of the gallantry and efficiency of 
Colonel Browx), was denied; and indeed would have been un- 
availing, as the army remained inactive until November, when the 
movement was made to Fredericksburg ; Burnside, the new com- 
mander of the Federal army, having ado])ted that as his line of 
attack. In the celebrated battle which followed on the 13th of 
December, Colonel Brown's command was conspicuously engaged. 
In the instructions from Stonewall Jackson to General J). PI. Hill, 
we find these words, " Please include Colonel Brown's regiment 
of artillery in your command." If we are not greatly mistaken, 
the greater portion of this regiment was engaged on the extreme 
right, exposed to the heaviest bombardment and suffering many 
casualties ; it was here that Lieutenant-Colonel Coleman received 
the grievous Avound which terminated his valuable life in the 
following spring. 

The artillery now went into winter-quarters near Bowling 
Green, Caroline county, from which they did not move until the 
1st of May, 1863, to take part in the battle of Chancellorsville. 
At the most critical period of this battle, when Jackson's column 
was moving around Hooker's army, and the success of the move- 
ment depended upon the diversion of the enemy, Colonel Brown's 
command had a severe engagement with their artillery at Catherine 
Furnace; and without the cooperation of any other arm, suc- 
ceeded so effectively in masking the flank movement as to elicit 
the warmest praise from General Lee and other prominent officers. 
The following night Colonel Brown was informed of the wounding 
of Colonel Crutchfield, and immediately went forward and assumed 
command of Jackson's artillery; reaching the field some time 
before the position at Chancellorsville was taken. 

His command was effectively engaged under General Early in 
the storming and taking of Winchester, and in the battle of Get- 
tysburg was employed on the left of the Confederate line, and was 
frequently engaged in the skirmishes on the retreat. With the 
exception of the bootless Bristoe expedition, in which he was en- 
gaged, and the result of which he bitterly deplores in one of his 
letters there is notliing in his career during the remainder of that 
year deserving special mention. His command returned to 
Orange, and after Meade's demonstration at Mine Run, went into 



JSC4.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 565 

winter-quarters near Frederickshall, Louisa county. In April, 
1864, the command was recalled to Orange, and on the 4th of 
May was ordered to the Wilderness to meet the advance of Grant. 

The writer of this notice happened to be with Colonel Brown 
when the order to move was received. The alacrity with which 
he prepared to obey it was remarkable to one who could but re- 
member that he had already seen three years of active and labo- 
rious service, and knew moreover how earnestly he longed (to use 
his own words) for "home and peace." Alas ! he little knew the 
deep significance of these words! for within two short days he 
found them both — the "home" which is not of earth, and the 
" peace " which passeth understanding. 

The exact manner and circumstances of his death are here de- 
scribed in an extract kindly furnished from the journal of Major 
Eugene Blackford, Avho commanded thebattalion of sharpshooters 
of Rodes' division. Army of Northern Virginia : — 

" May 6th, 1864. On this day we were stationed on the right 
of the old stone-road from Orange Court House to Fredericskburg. 
While skirmishing with the enemy. Colonel John Thompson 
Brown, of the artillery, came up to my post, looking for a suit- 
able position for a battery. He seemed much interested in what 
was going on, needlessly exposing himself, I thought. As I was 
myself firing at the time, he several times looked over my shoulder, 
and along the rifle at the object. While in this position, with his 
hand on my arm, he was struck in the head by a ball, which 
glanced downwards from a limb of a tree just above. The pro- 
digious force of the missile caused him to fall several feet from 
me, and before I could raise him in my arms he was speechless, and 
died in a few minutes. I had deemed myself steeled against such 
feelings; but this sudden calamity for a time coTiij)letely unmanned 
me. The hardy veterans around, chosen from a whole division 
for their nerve and indifference to danger, stood horror-stricken, 
involuntarily uncovering in presence of such a death. Thus this 
gallant soldier and gentleman breathed his last at the lonely 
picket-post, but as gently tended as the most sorrowing hearts 
could prompt. Upon notification of the sad event at head- 
^j[uarters, the body wiis taken in charge by officers sent for that 
purpose." 

The officer (J. C. Angell) who bore the mournful tidings to 
lieadqiiarters, writes of it thus : — " I sought General Long, and 



566 THE UNTVEESITY MEMORIAL. ^y^^^.^ 

when informed of Colonel Brown's death, he was affected even to 
the shedding of tears, and requested that I would say nothing of 
it in the presence of the troops." Could we ask for our young hero 
a more eloquent eulogium than these simple statements, that vete- 
rans uncovered involuntarily when he fell, while tears were 
wrung from his commander, who knowing how he was beloved by 
the whole army, dreaded the depression which the tidings of his 
death would bring? 

The body was conveyed to Charlottesville, and on the following 
Sunday, in the presence of a sorrowing community, was buried in 
the cemetery. 

Here might terminate the record of his military life, but we 
cannot forbear to give some extracts from the letters of those who 
were associated with him. General Ewell, with whom Colonel 
Brown was an especial favorite, in his Gettysburg report said : — 
" Colonel John Thompson Brown, commanding artillery of this 
corps, showed himself competent to his position, and gave me 
perfect satisfaction ; " and in a private communication recently 
written he speaks with peculiar emphasis of " Colonel Brown's 
services at the retreat over the Potomac, where he saved the 
artillery of the corps, not only without orders, but against 
orders ; " the explanation being that he was ordered not to de- 
pend upon the pontoons for anything, and yet, when Colonel 
Brown found that no boats were provided, after he managed in 
a stormy night and over a terrible road to get all his guns to tlie 
river side, and seeing that to obey orders was to run the risk of 
total loss, he took the responsibility of violating the letter of 
instruction, and managed to get his last gun over shortly after 
sunrise, coolly going to work to put one gun that had broken 
down in a wagon rather than leave it behind. 

General A. L. Long, his immediate commander, says : — " I 
had frequent occasion to know Colonel Brown in the Army of 
Northern Virginia before he came under my command. His 
position was conspicuous in the artillery of the army. He was 
placed under my command in the fall of 1863. I soon came to 
regard him as a man of the purest personal character and of the 
highest military worth. His own immediate command was com- 
posed of three battalions of light artillery, equal in importance to 
a division of five thousand infantry, and requiring a higher order 
of talent. The best manner of estimating the worth of a mil- 



1S04.] THE UjS'IVERSITY MEMORIAL. 567 

itaiy commander is to watch the efficiency of his troops — how 
they act, and what they accomplish in the field. Tried by these 
tests, Brown's command was not surpassed by any in the whole 
army, either in efficient service or in gallant action. Its brave 
commander was always at its head, and wherever hard blows 
were to be struck, there he was sure to be found. He fell, deeply 
deplored by the whole army." Another officer, closely associated 
with him, says : — " It is needless to tell you how much Colonel 
Beowx was beloved by his officers and men. He was a good 
disciplinarian, strict, but never unduly hard. He Avas always 
just. His decisions were rarely wrong. He saved his command 
admirably. He was very quick on the field. In my judgment 
he was among the first artillery officers I met during the war." 

These honest and hearty commendations might be indefinitely 
multiplied from officers in every grade of service, but we have 
room for only one more, and that must be from his courier, who, 
after a lengthened detail of the many kind acts he had received 
at the hands of Colonel Beown, concludes with this simple but 
truly touching incident and comment : — " While we were eating 
breakfast, news came to us that the enemy was advancing, and 
that the artillery was needed at the front. We started, but had 
gone but little way when Colonel Browx noticed that I was 
riding a white horse; and fearing it would make me too con- 
spicuous for my safety, made me exchange to one of his own. 
Who," he adds with a touching simplicity and pathos, " but a 
man of noble heart would have so considered the safety of a hoy 
in such a moment?" And not only in tlie hour of battle, but 
at all times and under every circumstance did he consider and 
provide for the welfare of all committed to his charge, nursing 
them in the hospital, and carrying, when ijecessary, their food 
with his own hands ; and when his own time was so fully occupied 
as to prevent his personal attention, invoking tlie cheerful assist- 
ance of his devoted wife (his constant comjianion whenever pos- 
sible) in the distribution of the provisions so systematically made 
for the physical or moral comfort of his men. Such were the 
quiet but unerring proofs of a devoted sense of duty, always ani- 
mated and guided by a warm and earnest piety. 

His intellect was vigorous, and his opinions, maturely and de- 
liberately formed, were adhered to and maintained with a con- 
sistency and firmness eminently characteristic. When the great 



568 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[May, 



struggle came he threw his whole soul into the Southern cause. 
Born to the prospect of affluence, and with the present means of 
gratifying every Avish, and every allurement to a life of ease and 
safety, he did not hesitate for a moment, but went forward with 
cheerfulness to encounter the privations, the exposures and the 
dangers of an active military life. Without parade or boast or 
threat, but witii stern determination, and an inflexibility of 
purpose which knew no pause but in victory or death, he advanced 
along the path of duty, and as we have seen, met the order which 
summoned him to the last and fatal field with a spirit as high and 
dauntless as when in the morning of the contest he went forth to 
fire the first hostile gun upon Virginia waters. 

The hand of friendship fiilters and almost fails in the attempt 
to portray the features of his private life, for there is no language 
which can fitly express the magnetic power of that open, frank, 
and generous nature which, when offered to your embrace, you can 
only grapple Avitli silent gratitude to the heart. At best it sounds 
like a cold and formal and inadequate tribute to say that he was 
as constant in friendship as he was inflexible in faith — that he 
held you by a spell which sprang from no artifice, for "his virtues 
were his arts" — that his very presence gave a glow of satisfaction 
to those who loved him, to whom indeed he was a portion of life, 
for they drew no picture of the future and formed no plan which 
did not embrace him. 

And now, just as we are closing this imperfect memorial, there 
comes to us, fortunately, this crowning tribute from his beloved 
chief, General Robert E. Lee : — 

"Colonel Brown commanded the First Regiment of Virginia 
Artillery in the Seven Days' battles around Richmond, to which 
position he had been elected by the companies composing it at its 
reorganization in the spring of 1862, and opei'ated with the troops 
that crossed the Chickahominy to attack the Federal right. The 
efficiency and skill he displayed in these battles, in the night attack 
on the shipping at Westover from the south bank of the James; 
his services with General Jackson's corps, to which he was attached 
after the second battle of Manassas, in the capture of Harper's 
Ferry, the battles of Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and Chancel- 
lorsville, in all of which he evinced great merit; caused him to be 
prominently considered for the post of Chief of Artillery of the 
3d corps at its organization. As second in command of the 



1664.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 569 



artillery of the 2d corps, he acted as Chief of Artillery of that 
corps after Colonel Crutchfield was disabled at the battle of Chan- 
cellorsville, and had special command of a battalion of five field 
batteries, which he managed with admirable gallantry at Gettys- 
burg, Mine Run, and throughout the campaign of 1863. 

" The great care he bestowed upon his battalion in the hard 
winter of 1863-4, enabled it to take its position promptly at the 
opening of the spring, with the 2d cor})s, at the \Yilderness on the 
5th of May. On the second day of that struggle (May 6th), at 
an early hour, as he was seeking a favorable advanced position for 
his batteries, he was struck by the shot of a Federal sharpshooter, 
and died lamented by the whole army. 

" Colonel Beown united in his character in a remarkable degree 
the excellencies of a soldier, the qualities of a gentleman, and the 
virtues of a Christian. To a cultivated intellect he joined judg- 
ment, energy, and promptitude, and was conspicuous for his 
gallantry in all the battles of the war in which he was engaged. 
He possessed the love of his soldiers, the esteem of his commanders, 
and the admiration of his native State." 

And thus we close the record of this brave young soldier, pain- 
fully conscious of the imperfect manner in which our portion of 
the duty has been performed, but finding compensation in the 
reflection that his truest and best epitaph is declared in tiie mul- 
tiplied evidences we have given of the unusual and universal grief 
which his death brought to all his companions in arms, from the 
great commander to the humblest private ; and in the unrecorded 
sorrow of that other host of friends, who, standing as it were by 
liis tomb, would with one consent inscribe upon it in imperishable 
characters the declaration, that in the long and mournful catalogue 
of the victims of the late war, Virginia finds tlie name of no truer, 
braver, or better sou than John Thompson Brown. 



570 THE UIsIVERSITY MEMORIAL. piay, 

DAVID WATSON, M. A., 

Major of the 1st Regiment of Virginia Artillery- 

David Watson was bora on the 25tli of November, 1834, at 
Brackett's, situated in that portion of the county of Louisa known 
as the Green Springs ; a region noted not more for the fertility of 
its soil and the excellence of its agriculture than for the intelli- 
gence and elevated character of its citizens. Conspicuous among 
these was Dr. James Watson, who had already won the entire 
confidence and the warmest esteem of his community, when at a 
comparatively early age he died, leaving to his sorrowing widow 
the charge of two infant children, the younger being the subject 
of our sketch. 

Fortunately, the mother was in every way equal to the respon- 
sibilities of the trying situation ; and the writer is glad to avail 
himself of this opportunity to pay even a passing tribute to a noble 
woman who not long since completed her earthly pilgrimage, and 
has gone, as we may fondly believe, to rejoin the child she loved 
so well, and to receive the rewards of a life dedicated wholly and 
constantly to the service of the Master, and illustrated in its entire 
course by steadfast devotion to duty, by a radiant piety, and a 
perennial charity. 

The precepts and prayers of such a mother jDroduced their 
natural results ; her son advanced steadily and surely in the path 
of wisdom and of virtue. Even in childhood he exhibited a se- 
dateness and propriety which were truly remarkable; and during 
the period of his youth, whilst entirely free from gloom or des- 
pondency, there were about him a gravity and decorum, and, 
better still, a moral heroism which gave a daily beauty to his 
life. His boyish associates all unite in the declaration that no 
temptation could seduce him from what he regarded as the line 
of propriety and honor, but at the same time he was entirely free 
from any oifensive assumption of superiority. In ordinary mat- 
ters, and generally, he was modest even to diffidence; but in every 
moral exigency he was prompt to prove that he was afraid of 
nothing but of doing wix)ng; and the law of his life was an earnest 
purpose to fulfil every wish of that widowed mother, to whom he 
never brought a pang but in his exposure to danger and in his 
death. His intellect, solid rather than brilliant, was "rich in 



1SC4.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 571 



saving common-sense ; " and homely as it may sound, there Avas 
much of pohit, and a telling truth, in the simple eulogy of one of 
his old servants, who, in lamenting his death, said of him that 
" he seemed always to be considering what was best to he done." 
It demonstrates too how forcibly the sterling qualities of his 
character, and especially his strict adherence to principle, had 
been impressed upon all classes, from the highest to the lowest. 

He had an eager thirst for knowledge, was a proficient in many 
branches of learning, and loved them all. After a thorough pre- 
paration at the best schools in the country, he entered at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, and took its first honor with great distinction. 
Blest by fortune with the means of gratifying every reasonable 
wish, he now returned to his home to devote liimself to agricultural 
pursuits, with the fairest prospects of a prosperous and happy life; 
for he entered it under the bright auspices of 

" high thought, and amiable words, 

And courteous mien, and the desire of fame, 
And love of truth, and all that makes a man." 

Alas ! tliat a life with so fair a morning should be destined to 
a speedy and melancholy close. 

In the discussions and arguments which preceded the terrible 
war which has desolated our country, David Watsox took that 
earnest interest which belonged to such a nature ; and partly from 
original bias and partly from association, he soon became the warm 
advocate for the secession of the Southern States. In the spring 
of 1861 he took a Southern tour, and happened to be in Mont- 
gomery, Alabama (where the Confederate Congress held its meet- 
ings), when the news arrived of the decisive step on the part of 
Virginia to join her sister States ; and in a brief letter written 
from that place he announces his purpose of'curtailing his tour, 
and of his immediate return to Virginia. 

He soon demonstrated his characteristic firmness by his deter- 
mination to enter the army ; and having selected the artillery as 
liis favorite arm, enrolled himself as a private in the company then 
forming in Albemarle under Captain W. II. Southall, of which, 
when fully organized, he was elected 2d Lieutenant. 

This company was ordered to the camp of instruction at Rich- 
mond about the middle of July, 1861, and in his first letter, 
written on the 18th, he betrays something of the impatience of 
the young soldier, saying, " When I think that the great jirjlit is 



572 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. j-jlay, 

going on while we are shut up here, it seems like a farce as far as 
we are concerned." Finally they were ordered to the Peninsula, 
and from that time forward the military life of David Watson 
was entirely coincident with that of his friend and immediate 
superior, John Thompson Brown — a full statement of which 
having been made in a preceding portion of this work, we only 
deem it necessary to give a brief outline here, together with such 
additions as are suggested by Major Watson's letters, or by the 
cordial testimonials of his associates in arms. 

During the fall and winter of 1861 the Peninsula remained very 
quiet, the monotony being broken only by the marchings and 
countermarchings ordered by the vigilant Magruder, and by the 
necessary preparations to meet the threatened descent of the Burn- 
side expedition or suspected sallies from Fortress Monroe. These, 
however, proved all to be false alarms ; and the army at last was 
left to make itself as comfortable as was practicable in wintry 
weather and on marshy ground. 

The company to which Lieutenant Watson belonged remained 
at Fort Magruder until October, 1861, wlien it was ordered to 
Young's Mill. Soon after this one section was sent to Ship Point, 
under Watson's command, for a month or two, and it is from this 
place that most of his communications are dated. 

Lieutenant Watson's letters written during this j)eriod give 
good-humored accounts of the discomforts and disappointments to 
which he and his companions were subjected, but which fortunately 
brought more of mirth than vexation to men who had made up 
their minds to endure all things for the cause to which they were 
devoted. Remembering the comfort, ease, and elegance amid 
which he had been reared, one can scarcely repress a smile to find 
Lieutenant Watson writing thus in the middle of December: — 
" I have not gone into my winter-quarters yet, because the daubing 
is not quite dry, but they would be available in case of a spell of 
bad weather " — reminding us of the sang froid of the Scotch 
schoolmaster who was seen leading his saddle-horse along the pub- 
lic highway, and when asked what use he had for him, quaintly 
replied tiiat "he found him very convenient in crossing loater- 
courses ! " 

On the 24th of December he writes thus cheerily : — " There is 
nothing in the appearance of our camp to indicate that it is 
Christmas-Eve, and I had, almost forgotten it. Tell H and 



1SG4.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 573 



S they must write me what Santa, Claus does for them. My 

teufc lias a chimney and a comfortable fire-place, but the chimney 
is built of mud and topped with a flour-barrel ; so I fear Old Nich 
will not come down." 

As a sj^ecimen of the straits to which soldiers are reduced in 
their menage, and of inventions which necessity brings forth, 
we give another amusing extract from his letter of January 19th, 
1862 :■ — " We have knocked up some bedsteads, and have a large 
dry-goods box for dinner-table and side-board, and consider our- 
selves admirably ' fixed.' Our service of plates and spoons is 
rather limited, to be sure, all hands having to stir their coffee with 
the same simoon — but that is a small matter." 

Mitigated by such pleasant communion with the loved ones at 
home and the companionship of congenial spirits, the winter passed 
comfortably enough, and with the spring came the interest and 
excitement of renewed hostilities. General McClellan, with a 
host sufficient to have overwhelmed the small array opposed to 
him, landed on the Peninsula, and for a fortnight or more allowed 
himself to be held at bay by a force scarcely more than a tenth 
part of his own. 

Two sections of the company occupied Fort Raines during 
McClellan's siege; the remaining section, under Watson, at a 
point known as Winn's Mills, where it was constantly exposed to 
a heavy fire from the batteries of the enemy. 

On the 30th of April of the same year, he was chosen Captain 
of the second company of Howitzers, in the 1st Regiment of Vir- 
ginia Artillery, a singularly high and almost unique compliment, 
and an unerring token of his great reputation, as he was personally 
unknown to the large majority of the company. 

We have no evidence of any active partici|lation on the part of 
Captain Watson's company until the last of May, when it was 
conspicuously engaged at the battle of Seven Pines. 

The 1st Regiment of Virginia Artillery was now added to 
General Pendleton's reserve, and consequently was not employed 
in the series of battles which raged for seven days around Rich- 
mond ; but in the special service of firing on the Federal trans- 
ports (of which a full account is given in the sketch of Colonel J. 
T. Brown) Captain Watson was immediately and particularly 
concerned. Colonel Brown and himself having made the daring 
and dangerous reconnoissance during the day before. The writer 



574 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[May, 



heard from Captain Watson himself a full account of this recon- 
noissance, which was made at mid-day. He recounted the dangers 
to which they were exposed, the Federal fleet being in full sight, 
and told with great glee of the narrow escape they had from the 
vigilance of a small dog, which had established itself in the de- 
serted house to the attic windows of which they had climbed for 
the better view they afforded. Fortunately, however, the very 
audacity of their movement proved to be their safeguard, and the 
alarm given by the canine sentinel being unheeded, " they retired 
in good order." 

After lying near Petersburg for a short time, some five or six 
companies of the 1st Virginia Artillery (including the 2d 
Howitzers) under Colonels Brown and Coleman, went into the 
Maryland campaign. Not long after the Sharpsburg fight these 
companies were formed into a battalion and attached to Stonewall 
Jackson's corps, and for two months or more were encamped in the 
lower part of the Shenandoah Valley. Captain Watson's letters 
written during this period all breathe the same spirit of cheerful 
endurance and of unalterable devotion to duty. He speaks also 
with enthusiasm of the lovely country in which he is encamped, 
especially of that portion around Millwood, in Clarke county; of 
the unwearied hospitality and kindness of the citizens, Avho are 
none the less admirable in his eyes in reminding him in their 
manners and general bearing of " Old Virginia ladies and gentle- 
men;" and he is thereby the more grieved at the spoliation, 
Avanton in part, and in part necessary, to which this beautiful 
region had been subjected by the troops of the contending armies. 

One of his letters, however, dated October 26th, 1862, is written 
in a very different strain, shrouded as he was in sorrow for the 
loss of his friend, companion, and relative,' Captain William 
Morris, who died on the 18th of October, after a painful and 
lingering confinement of sixteen weeks — his leg having been shat- 
tered in the fight at Gaines' Mill. Captain Watson only gave 
expression to the general grief which M'as elicited by the death of 
this gallant and excellent young man when he said : — " I can well 
imagine what a gloom William Morris's death has cast over your 
whole neighborhood ; and I find some mitigation in the thought 
that I am not at home where every object would be so painfully 
associated with him. Even here, however, I can but remember 
how inseparably he was connected with every plan of pleasure or 
enjoyment I ever had." 



18G4.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOraAL. 575 



The battalion moved with Jackson about the last of November, 
and early in December reached Fredericksburg. In a few days it 
proceeded to Port Royal, where it had an inconclusive duel with 
the Federal gunboats, and returned just in time to take an active 
part in the celebrated battle of Fredericksburg, on the 13th of 
December, 1862. Captain Watson's company, together with 
several others, under the "brave Pelham," was hotly engaged in 
this terrible contest. These batteries were placed in the open 
plain to the right (facing the river) of Hamilton's Crossing, and 
were exposed during the whole of the conflict to the deadly 
plunging fire of the enemy's guns posted on the Stafford Heights. 
Watson's splendid bearing on this occasion elicited the universal 
admiration of his company. But we prefer to let him recount the 
perils of the fight in his own modest way. In his letter to his 
mother, M^'itten on the 17th (four days after the battle), he says, in 
speaking of the fight: — "It was a severe day on all the artillery, 
and my battery formed no exception to the rule, losing eight (8) 
men (one mortally wounded) and sixteen horses. We had been 
stationed near Port Royal, and had to march all night to get up 
in time, and as soon as we were on the field were ordered at once 
into the fight. I was sent to General Stuart (J. E. B.), who com- 
manded on the extreme right on the low grounds of the Rappa- 
hannock ; and we were engaged, I may say all day, in the open field 
against the enemy's batteries and sharpshooters. Major Pelham 
(General Stuart's Chief of Artillery) gave me the flattering as- 
surance the next day that General Stuart was highly pleased with 
the performance of my battery, so I am disposed to brag a little." 
As this is the only allusion in his whole correspondence to his own 
services, and even this made so modestly to his mother, no one, we 
think, will sanction the concluding epithet on his well-won 
laurels. 

After the battle of Fredericksburg, the artillery went into winter 
quarters near Bowling Green, Caroline county, and Watson was 
made Major pf his battalion. In the spring of 18G3 it was acrain 
summoned to the field, and bore a conspicuous part in the battle of 
Cliancellorsvillc, particularly in the affair at Catherine Furnace 
where, unaided by any other portion of tiie army, it succeeded in 
masking the celebrated flank movement whereby General Jackson 
so utterly confounded the plans of the Federal commander 
Hooker. 



576 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL, pj^^.^ 

A month of rest now ensued, and again the army moved north- 
ward, first to Culpeper Court House, thence to Winchester, where 
several thousand prisoners were taken, one battalion of the 
artillery bearing a prominent part in this brilliant affair. Thence 
it moved on into Pennsylvania, as far as Carlisle, from which 
point Major Watson writes back, June 29th, 1863, full of high 
hope and expectation. In the disastrous day of Gettysburg the 
artillery was closely engaged, and it is now generally believed that 
General Lee's retreat was necessitated by the exhaustion of his 
fixed ammunition in the prolonged and extensive artillery fire on 
that occasion. From Gettysburg the battalion came back to 
Orange county, and, with the exception of the Bristow expedition, 
was not again actively engaged during the fall. After changing 
camp several times, it finally went into winter-quarters at Fred- 
erickshall, Louisa county. The only incident of note during 
this pause was the cavalry raid of Dahlgren, which sweeping 
down the railroad, broke in rather rudely upon a court-martial in 
which Major Watsox was playing the part of Judge- Advocate, 
and took him, together with his associates, as prisoners of war. 
He managed, however, by coolly watching his opportunity, to 
escape as soon as night fell, and returned to his encampment early 
the next day. 

" In April, 1864, the artillery returned to the army, and lay in 
Orange awaitin"; General Grant's decision as to which wins>; of the 
Confederate army he should attack. Finally, it was ordered to 
the right, and Major Watson was engaged in the battle of the 
Wilderness on the 5th and 6th of May. On the 10th of the same 
month the enemy broke through the Confederate lines at Spotsyl- 
vania Court House, and it was here that Major Watson received 
his fatal wound." Always serene and intrepid, his last act was to 
aid his Colonel in serving a gun which had been temporarily 
abandoned. Only four days before, his faithful friend and con- 
genial companion, John Thompson Brown, had fallen at a lonely 
picket-post; and looking to the sad coincidence of their deaths and 
the concurrent features of their characters and careers, we may 
fitly paraphrase what Tacitus wrote of Agricola, and say, '' similes 
non vitce tantum daritate, sed etiam opportunitate mortis." When 
we remember how deeply and entirely the feelings of these brave 
spirits were enlisted in the cause, and how bitter and intolerable 
would have been the subsequent disappointment to hopes so intense 



nr^r 



1SG4] THE UJ;iVEK8ITY MEMORIAL. bit 

as theirs, we may well ask ourselves if such a death as came to 
each was not after all an euthanasia. 

Major AVatson was borne from the field and carried to a neigh- 
boring house, where he received all the aid that kindness and 
sympathy could give. Happily, he retained his faculties long 
enough to recognize the presence of that heart-broken mother; she 
who had leant forward with throbbinor heart to catch the first 
tidings from every battle-field on which her darling was en- 
dangered, and on whose prophetic face for three long anxious years 
had been prefigured this coming agony. She came in time to 
receive the last pressure of that "dear hand," and to hear from 
his own lips this solemn declaration, "I have never believed in a 
death-bed repentance ; so for three years I have every night, 
before retiring to rest, earnestly prayed to God, not so much that he 
looxdd spare my life as that he would prepare me for this day, and 
save my soul.'' Comforting words! welling up from a brave, 
honest, sincere heart, and recalling the kindred declarations of 
Jackson and of Havelock. 

Death terminated his sufferings on Friday, the 13tli of May, 
1864. His remains were borne to Louisa, and on the following Sun- 
day (May 15th) in the presence of Aveeping relatives and mourning 
friends, were committed to earth at his birth-place. 

Such was the life and such the death of David Watsox. 
"Would that we had space for all the heartfelt testimonials which 
his brethren have sent. One says, " He was certainly one of the 
best, bravest, and most conscientious officers in our army." 
Another writes: — " AVhat shall I say of David AYatson? He 
was my beau ideal of a gentleman and a soldier. He was mod- 
est as a woman ; and hence promotion which he deserved was too 
long delayed. In ray opinion, and in that of others more com- 
petent to judge. Major AVatsox would have adorned any position 
that could have been given him in the army. He had talents of 
a rare order to command men, and his thorough discipline and 
system was something new in the Confederate army. His men 
adored him because he was brave, i^rudent, and just, and they 
would have followed him anywhere his wisdom led. I have 
never seen his equal for coolness and indomitable courage in 
action. Under the most trying circumstances, he looked on and 
directed as calmly as though he were conducting an operation on 
his farm. 
37 



578 THE UJS'TVEESITY MEMOBIAL. 



[May, 



"Duty was the great and all-controlling motive with him. He 
obeyed all orders from superior authority with something akin to 
religious awe, and in turn exacted the promptest and most implicit 
obedience from those below him in rank. He was shot down, 
about a yard from me, while working the same gun with myself, 
on the evening of that eventful 10th day of May (1864), and died 
a few days thereafter, scarcely uttering a murmur, although his 
wound must needs have been very painful." 

Could we add anything which would not weaken the pathetic 
power of these tributes, which high esteem, devoted friendship, 
and undying love have cast upon the tomb of 

"This selfless man and stainless gentleman" ? 



H. CLAY PATE, 

Colonel, 5tli Virginia Cavalry. 



Edward Pate, son of Matthew Pate, Sr., and father of Colonel 
H. C. Pate, was born in Bedford county, Virginia, in the year 
1781. He was an officer under General Leftwich during the war of 
1812, and served several sessions in the General Assembly of Vir- 
ginia. In 1822 he married Miss Sallie Bailey, daughter of Cap- 
tain James Bailey and grand-daughter of Colonel James Bullock, 
both gallant soldiers of the Revolutionary War. H. C. Pate was 
born near the " Cross-Roads," in Bedford county, April 21st, 1832. 
As a boy he was thoughtful and studious, and was greatly inter- 
ested in the lives of great Generals. His own preference was for 
the life of a soldier, but his parents preferred that he should study 
law. His attention was accordingly directed to those studies 
which would more thoroughly fit him for a successful career in 
the legal profession. In the fall of 1848 he entered the University 
of Virginia as a State student. Two years he pursued his studies 
with diligence and success in the regular academic course, proposing 
to devote two years also to the study of his profession. In this, 
however, he was disappointed. His father's financial difficulties 
prevented his return to the University after his second session. 

In the summer of 1850 he went to Louisville, Kentucky, where 



1804.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 579 



he formed a business connection. Here, by writing articles and 
sketches for newspapers, he procured money with which he bought 
law books, thus early showing the possession of unusual talents and 
enterprise. In 1851 he removed to Cincinnati, and in 1852 pub- 
lished a little volume called Vade Meeum, the object of which 
was to draw attention to the University. In the spring of 1853 
he commenced the publication of a newspaper, which, at the end 
of two years, he sold, doubling the money invested. In the 
meantime he continued the study of law, and was admitted to 
practice. In 1855 he started to California by way of the plains ; 
but being specially attracted by the town of Westport, in Mis- 
souri, he settled there, bought a press, commenced the publication 
of The Star of the Empire, opened a law-office, and entered upon 
his public career. At the end of his second year in Westport he 
was considered a wealthy man. 

It was during his residence at this place that the Kansas 
troubles commenced. True to his Southern education, he took 
sides with the South, and gave his whole influence to the cause 
which he espoused. In 1856 murders were so numerous that 
Governor Geary sent Colonel Pate with twenty-five mounted men 
into the Pottawottamie Indian country to arrest the murderers. 
He succeeded in arresting several, and was returning with his 
prisoners, when, at daylight one morning, his pickets were driven 
in and his camp attacked. He arranged his little force to the 
best advantage, and repulsed the assailants several times. Some 
eight or ten of his men were badly wounded, and part of the 
remainder were guarding the prisoners. After the fight had con- 
tinued four or five hours, Colonel Pate presented a flag of truce, 
which was answered by the attacking party, and the leaders 
proposed to meet half way between the iines and come to an 
understanding. Pate advanced unarmed and met the commander 
of the other party, who immediately drew a pistol and demanded 
the unconditional surrender of Pate's forces. Pate indignantly 
refused, and upon looking around saw that six men had crawled 
along a ravine and were between him and his party. He called 
to his men to fire into this squad ; but his followers refused to 
hazard his life, and immediately surrendered. This treacherous 
Captain was the notorious Jolui Brown. Colonel Pate and his 
men remained prisoners for several days, and Avere finally released 
by Colonel Sumner, of the United States Dragoons. Brown's 



580 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [May, 

force on this occasion consisted of one hundred and twenty men, 
all armed with Sharpe's rifles and Colt's revolvers, furnished, no 
doubt, by his admirers in the East. 

Mr. Pate was sent several times to the East and South to col- 
lect money to aid the pro-slavery party in Kansas. AVIiile on one 
of these trips he became acquainted with Miss Sue Thomas, of 
Norfolk, to whom he was married in February, 1859. On account 
of the unsettled state of affairs in the West, he decided to remove 
to Petersburg, Virginia, which he did in 1860, and commenced 
the publication of the Petersburg Bulletin. He calmly watched 
the political horizon, and believing a war was inevitable, deter- 
mined to cast his lot with Virginia; and when the ordinance of 
secession was passed by the convention, he was ready. His plans 
M^ere arranged, and without any excitement he deliberately turned 
all his property into ready money, and proceeded to raise a com- 
pany of cavalry. Young men flocked to his standard, and in a 
few days his company was full. AVith his own means and credit 
he mounted the company, and, with a few young men of Norfolk, 
went to that city, where several vessels had been burned, and by 
patient industry succeeded in fishing up a sufficient number of 
guns, pistols, and sabres, to arm his command. His company was 
mustered into the service of the Confederate States, attached to 
"Wise's Leo-ion," and ordered to the Kanawha Vallcv. 

Captain Pate was engaged in several sharp skirmishes under 
Colonel John N. Clarkson, and rendered General Wise great 
service by his knowledge of the country. Colonel Clarkson, 
writing to a friend in Richmond, says of him : — " I always found 
him ready to meet every danger of the service. His conduct was 
always such as to merit and receive my highest approval. He was 
with me at the battle of Tony's Creek, also at Guyandotte, and 
he led his company in the most gallant manner in both engage- 
ments, but his conduct at Guyandotte was especially brilliant." 
He served under General Floyd in the Cotton Hill campaign, and 
in the spring of 1862 was ordered to Richmond. 

While on the march to Richmond he conceived the idea of 
raising a regiment of cavalry to be composed of men from all 
parts of Virginia. His plan, as stated to the writer, was to enlist 
men from every county, and hold his regiment as an independent 
•command to be used at any point. The men, being acquainted in- 
every locality, would be of vast service to act as scouts, cut off* the 



1SC.1. 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 581 



enemy's supplies, and keep the commanding General informed of 
all their movements. As soon as he reached Richmond he stated 
his plans to some of his friends, and the Secretary of War was so 
much pleased with them that he immediately issued an order 
giving him authority to carry them out. Pate at once sent offi- 
cers to all parts of the State to enlist men for his regiment. The 
idea of such a service charmed the young Virginians, and in a 
short time seven complete companies, numbering about nine hun- 
dred men, were made up. Pate formed a camp in Allen's Grove, 
near Pichmond, and commenced the tedious work of drilling 
preparatory to an active campaign. 

While thus engaged, he was several times visited by General J. 
E. B. Stuart, who always expressed gratification at the soldierly 
appearance and evolutions of the battalion. The Federal army, 
under McClellan, was then advancing upon P;ichmond, and Stuart 
was in need of cavalry. On the night of the 23d of June he sent 
an orderly to Colonel Pate, requesting him to report immediately 
to the cavalry headquarters. Pate did so, and was then and 
there informed that his battalion no longer existed, but that the 
5th Virginia Cavalry had been formed by adding com})anies to 
his command, and that the following were the field-officers : — 
Colonel, T. L. Rosser; Lieutenant-Colonel, H. C. Pate; Major, 
B. B. Douglass. Colonel Pate remained all night at General 
Stuart's headquarters, and in the morning rode slowly and thought- 
fully to his camp. The writer of this sketch rode with him. ■ He 
was silent, but his countenance indicated a struggle. Just before 
we reached our camp-pickets he stopped under the shade of an oak, 
threw himself from his horse, and sat down by the trunk of the 
tree. Suddenly he sprang up, exclaiming, " What shall I do ? 
How can I meet my men and tell them a stranger has been or- 
dered to coramand them?" He sat down again, and rested his 
face in his hands. At length he raised his head. His countenance 
had resumed its usual calm appearance. He smiled pleasantly as he 
said, " I think I see my way clear, now : the Confederate Gov- 
ernment has treated rae badly; but I belong to Virginia, and to 
her I devote my life." The same day, at dress-parade, he informed 
the officers of the change, and stated that he Avas no longer their 
chief. 

The news spread through the camp. Officers and men flocked 
to the headquarters. They could not believe that the Confedex'ate 



582 TPIE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[May. 



Government would break faith witli one who ha4 shown such zeal 
in its service. The battalion was in a state of insurrection. One 
word from Colonel Pate would have disbanded the whole com- 
mand. That word was never spoken. On the contrary, exerting 
that wonderful influence which he possessed over those with wliom 
he was associated, he succeeded in quelling all outward feeling on 
the part of officers and men ; and Avhen Colonel T. L. Rosser took 
command, the 27th of June, he was well received. Pate invited 
him to his table, and lent him horses. Colonel Rosser at once 
commenced the organization of the regiment into squadrons. In 
this matter he held no consultation with his Lieutenant-Colonel. 
Colonel Pate's brother was Adjutant of the battalion, and con- 
tinued to act as Adjutant of the regiment until the 7th or 8th of 
July, 1862, when he was taken sick and sent to Richmond by the 
surgeon. Colonel Rosser had promised to give him the position 
permanently ; but on the ground that he " was not a congenial 
companion," on the 11th of July he appointed Lieutenant Thomas 
Hollingsworth, Adjutant, and published a special order to that 
effect. Hollingsworth's commission, as he himself stated, was 
dated July 1st, 1862, three days after Colonel Rosser joined the 
regiment. 

The 10th of July, 1862, the officers of the regiment wrote a 
petition to Colonel Pate, requesting him to bring charges against 
Colonel Rosser for violation of one of the articles of war as es- 
tablished by the Confederate Government. Colonel Pate hesi- 
tated about sending forward the charges; but when assured by the 
officers that they required him as second officer to proceed in the 
matter, he consented, and sent the charges immediately to General 
Stuart. Colonel Pate was guilty of a violation of military dis- 
cipline in not sending them through Colonel Rosser. Stuart sent 
one of his staff-officers to inquire into the matter, and on the report 
of this officer, dismissed the subject. 

In the latter part of July, General Stuart established the cavalry 
camp around Hanover Court House. The 5th Regiment was en- 
camped on the farm of Mrs. "Winston, about a mile and a half 
from the Court House. Orders were immediately issued enforcing 
strict military law. Colonel Rosser issued a special order requir- 
ing all officers to report to him at reveille and tattoo. Another 
order was issued forbidding any member of the 5th Regiment 
sleeping out of camp without the Colonel's permission. Colonel 



104. 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 583 



Pate's wife came Into the neighborhood, and stayed with a family 
about a quarter of a mile from the regiment. He asked and 
obtained permission to visit her and return in the morning in time 
for dress-parade. He asserts that permission was given him to 
remain out of camp every night while his wife stayed in the neigh- 
borhood. Colonel Rosser asserts that permission was given for 
one night only. The evening of the 31st of July, 1862, Colonel 
Pate went to see his wife, and returned next morning as the 
regiment was forming for dress-parade. He rode to his position, 
and was greeted with the following order : — ■ 

" Lieutenant Colonel H. C. Pate is hereby placed in arrest 
and will confino himself to this camp within the chain of sentinels. 
Charge 1st: Disobedience of orders. Charge 2d : Violation of 
the 6th Article of War." 

He made no demonstration wdien he heard this order; his hand 
may have clutched tighter the sabre whicii he held, his lips may 
have closed more firmly, and his eye glistened more brightly, 
but this was all. 

War was now declared between Rosser and Pate. The former, 
as will be seen in the continuation of this sketcli, was backed by 
General Stuart and nine-tenths of Pate's brother officers ; the 
latter had the secret sympathy of the rank and file. I say secret, 
for this sympathy was never manifested save in whispers. Upon 
consultation with his friends, Colonel Pate sent a note to Hon. J. 
Randolph Tucker, Attorney-General of Virginia, stating the case 
and requesting his presence. Mr. Tucker promptly answered the 
summons. In the meantime Colonel Pate applied to General 
FitzLee for a copy of the charges, and also for information con- 
cerning the time set for the trial. General Lee replied : — 

" Sir : — Your communication received thts morning. You will 
be tried by a General Coiu't -Martial now in session at the Court 
House, some time during its sitting. Colonel S. D. Lee, 4th Vir- 
ginia Cavalry, is president, and Captain Q. N. Hammond, 1st 
Virginia Cavalry, Judge- Advocate." 

By some strange infatuation, up to this time Colonel Pate 
thought General Stuart his friend, or at least well-wisher. Read 
the following testimony given by Mr. Tucker before the court- 
martial which finally tried Colonel Pate: — 

" Hon. J. R. Tucker, a witness for the defence was duly sworn, 

" Question by accused. State what occurred between you and 



584 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[May, 



General Stuart in an interview last August, at Hanover Court 
House, in regard to the charges under which I was arrested. 

" Answer. . . . He (Colonel Pate) asked me to ride over to 
see General Stuart, and inquire whether the charges had been 
preferred on which he had been arrested, and request a copy of 
them. I rode over to General Stuart's headquarters, at the Court 
House, where I saw General Stuart for the first time in my life. 
I found him alone, I believe. I introduced myself to him in the 
usual way, and at once opened the matter of personal and official 
business which alone brought me to see him. He inquired if I 
was counsel for Colonel Pate. I replied in the affirmative. 
Whereupon he said, ' Colonel Rosser has not yet made out the 
charges; they will be made out in due time, and a copy will be 
furnished the accused,' or to that effi?ct. . . . About that time 
Captain J. E. Cooke came in, whom I knew very well, and who 
was on the General's staff. After interchanging greetings with 
him, General Stuart surprised me by turning to Captain Cooke 
with a laugh and a jeer, which I can only so describe, and asking 
Captain Cooke what he supposed had brought me there. Cooke 
replied that he did not know, and the General added in the same 
manner, ' He has come up here to defend Pate.' If I were not 
very careful not to state anything which I am not sure did occur, 
I would state as my firm impression that he prefaced the name of 
Pate with the expression ' this fellow.' As may be conceived, my 
feelings were far from comfortable. He then added to me, * But I 
suppose, Mr. Tucker, gentlemen in your profession think the 
worse the case the greater the triumph.' He added further remarks 
about its being a bad case, and I think an expression of this kind : 
' We know Pate about here.' " 

This conversation opened the eyes of Colonel Pate to the fact 
that General Stuart was not only not his friend, but that he was 
looked upon by General Stuart as "a fellow," The court-martial 
over which the pure and gallant S. D. Lee presided, proceeded to 
the trial . Colonel R.osser, at his own request, was permitted to 
assist in the prosecution. Pate was sanguine of an honorable 
acquittal, but his trial and trials had just commenced. The army 
was ordered to move, and on the 16th of August, 1862, the court 
adjourned. Pate made application for a release from arrest, 
either to go with the army or to some point where he could settle 
his family and recruit his health. General Stuart, who had a 
violent prejudice against liim, refused to grant his petition. 



18C4.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 585 



The 5th Virginia Cavalry struck tents, packed away everything 
in wagons, and moved to the north to meet General Pope. One 
tent remained standing, one wagon remained in the camp. There 
is nothing more desolate than a deserted camp. The tent-poles, 
some standing firmly, others leaning, others scattered around, 
speak of desertion. Worn-out oil-cloths, broken cooking utensils, 
empty boxes, pieces of bridles and saddles, the absence of neighing 
horses and their noisy riders ; the painful silence, unbroken save 
by the snarling of hungry curs fighting over fleshless bones, tell 
that tiie camp is deserted and the soldiers far away. 

Colonel Pate stood by his tent and watched his regiment 
moving off. As long as his battle-flag was in sight, he watched ; 
as long as he could hear the tramp of the horses and the ringing 
notes of the bugle, he listened. The battle-flag faded from his 
sight, the bugle-notes died on his ear ; he turned to his camp, and 
his heart sank within him. About 10 o'clock at night Company 
D of the 5th Regiment, which had been doing picket-duty at the 
White House, rode up. Captain Bullock halted for the men to 
eat supper and feed their horses, and then moved on to overtake 
the regiment. This was Pate's original company, and it was 
meet that it should be the last to leave the camp and the old com- 
mander. The company marched by tlie Colonel's tent; every cap 
was lifted and every eye glistened with tears as Colonel Pate 
said, " Do your duty, my men, and may God preserve and bless 
you." 

We will pass over the period from the 16th of August, 1862, 
to the 12th of March, 1863, when the court-martial assembled 
which finally tried the charges against Colonel Pate. The fol- 
lowing officers composed the Court: — President, Colonel S. Wil- 
liams; Judge- Advocate, Lieutenant G. Freaner; Colonel P. M. B. 
Young, Lieutenant-Colonel J. D. Twiggs, Lieutenant-Colonel 
J. W. Carter, Major Lewis F. Terrell, and Captain W. F. Graves. 
In August, 1862, there were two charges; in March, 1863, there 
were five charges and twelve specifications. The Judge- Advocate, 
from the very beginning, assumed the position of prosecuting 
attorney, and labored faithfully to convict the accused. Inasmuch 
as Colonel Pate had able counsel, he stated that" he felt himself 
absolved from the double relation of counsel for the Confederate 
States and the accused." 

The trial was one of intense interest. It was the subject of dis- 



586 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[May, 



cussion throughout the whole army. The soldiers and officers 
generally sympatliized with Pate. The excitement in Pate's 
regiment was intense. The Court continued in session from the 
12th of March to the 22d of April, when the case was submitted 
and Colonel Pate honorably acquitted, and, by order of General 
R. E. Lee, resumed his sword. 

He immediately joined his regiment and entered into active 
service. In the cavalry fight at Aldie, which shortly followed, 
he was badly bruised and cut, and was in the hospital for several 
months. Recovering, he again returned to his command. 

When it was reported througii the regiment that Colonel Rosser 
would shortly receive the command of a brigade and leave the 
colonelcy vacant. Pate's friends were delighted with the idea that 
their old chief would soon have the command Avhich he should 
have had in the beginning. But yet other difficulties were before 
him. In the latter part of September, 1863, he received notice 
that charges of a serious nature had been preferred against him by 
Colonel Rosser. Upon application he was furnished with the 
followino; letter, which Colonel Rosser had sent to General Chilton, 
A. A. G. of the Army of Northern Virginia : — 

"General: — I most respectfully ask that a board of officers be 
convened as soon as practicable for the purpose of examining 
Lieutenant-Colonel H. C. Pate, of my regiment, with a view of 
having him removed from the field or his commission cancelled. 
Lieutenant-Colonel Pate has not served with his regiment a 
month since its organization in June, 18G2, and is now absent 
without leave, and has not been witli his regiment since the 17th 
of June last. He has never been in action with his regiment, and 
is totally mefficient, and lacks every qualification of an officer. 
Present or absent, he seems to take no interest whatever in the 
good of the command; and if such an officer be allowed to hold 
his commission, all discipline is gone, and the efficiency of the 
command to which he is attached will be destroyed." 

In accordance with the request of this letter. General R. E. Lee 
appointed a board, consisting of General L. L. Lomax, Colonel 
J. R. Chambliss, and Colonel T. H. Owens, to examine Colonel 
Pate. General Lomax was Pate's brigade-commander, had 
approved and forwarded Rosser's letter, and now sat as president 
of the examining board. The examination commenced on the 3d 
of November. Colonel Rosser had received his commission as 



1SC4.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 587 



Brigadier-General, and Pate had assumed command of the regi- 
ment. The writer has before him a copy of the official record of 
the board, which Colonel Pate procured from the office of Gen- 
eral Cooper. It is the only copy now in existence. Of it Colonel 
Pate wrote to his wife — " This copy will be of no particular use 
to me, but I wish it sacredly kept for my boy. In after years he 
may be called upon to defend the name and reputation of his 
father. With the official proceedings of my court-martial, and 
this record, he never need be ashamed of his father." 

The Board examined about twenty witnesses, making General 
Kosser's letter the basis of their examination. Each witness was 
asked, "Do you believe the efficiency of the regiment would be in- 
cieased or impaired by having Lieutenant-Colonel Pate as its 
commander?" Eighteen out of the twenty answered, "I believe 
it would be increased." General Rosser's answer was, " I believe 
the regiment would be broken up and destroyed in a very short 
time." Lieutenant J. W. Emmitt, Rosser's Adjutant, answered, 
" I do not know. The regiment is totally disorganized and wants 
some good officer to command it." The Board also examined 
Colonel Pate on drill and tactics, and made the following 
report : — 

••'The members of the Board being present and duly sworn, ex- 
amined into the evidence adduced in the case of Lieutenant- 
Colonel H. C. Pate, 5th Virginia Cavalry, and the Board are of 
the opinion, after mature deliberation upon the evidence adduced, 
that there is not shown any reason why Lieutenant-Colonel Pate 
should be removed from service; and the Board do recommend 
that he be promoted to the Colonelcy of the 5th Virginia Cavalry 
now vacant." Signed by all the members of the Board. 

Thus ended Colonel Rosser's prosecution '(or shall Ave say per- 
secution?) of his next in command. Himself a brave and gallant 
officer, we can only account for his conduct in this case by sup- 
posing him the victim of groundless prejudices. At last, by an 
impartial Board, Colonel Pate's merits were acknowledged, and 
he was permitted to act upon an open and honorable field. 

Colonel Pate entered at once upon the work of organizing and 
drilling his companies ; and every department was thoroughly over- 
hauled and inspected. Nothing escaped his attention, absentees 
were looked after, and each day witnessed an improvement of both 
men and horses. During the winter of 1863, while the brigade 



588 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. ^jyi^y. 

was disbanded to allow the men and horses to recuperate, Pate 
was active in getting recruits for his command. He was m 
constant communication with his officers, and aided them in getting 
horses for the dismounted men. When the regiment was dis- 
banded, the Adjutant reported between one hundred and one 
hundred and fifty men fit for duty. When it left camp on the 
morning of the 4th of May, 1864, to meet the advance of Grant's 
army, it numbered nearly six hundred. 

The 9th of May, Sheridan with about nine thousand cavalry cut 
loose from the main army and moved along the Telegraph road with 
a view to taking Richmond. Fitz Lee's division immediately 
followed, attacking Sheridan at every available point. Sheridan 
left the Telegraph road and followed what is known as the Moun- 
tain road. General Gordon followed on this road, while Stuart, 
with Fitz Lee commanding the brigades of Wickham and Lomax, 
kept the Telegraph road, intending to intercept Sheridan at the 
Yellow Tavern, where the Mountain and Telegraph roads meet, 
about six miles from Richmond. 

The 11th of May Lomax halted at the Yellow Tavern. The 
Telegraph road runs north and south ; the Mountain road comes 
into it from the northwest. Lomax's brigade formed along the 
Telegraph road, the left resting near the Tavern. General Lomax 
placed Colonel Pate in the command of the line, and then moved 
with his staif to a hill in the rear to watch the enemy's move- 
ments. Pate felt the responsibility of the situation. Imme- 
diately in front were open fields, and then a dense growth of woods. 
Pate with his Adjutant and couriers rode through this woods and 
discovered a deep gully running parallel with the Telegraph road. 
Along the edge of this gully, next to the open fields, he posted a 
line of skirmishers. In advance of this line he posted mounted 
men as an outlook. AVhen these lines had been established he 
returned to the road and posted a strong body of sharpshooters on 
his extreme left, to rake the road in case of a direct movement 
from that direction. He then formed his little brigade along the 
Telegraph road, in the best position the ground afforded. The 
reader will more fully understand Pate's plan when he takes into 
consideration the fact that Lomax's whole brigade Avas dismounted^ 
and entirely without protection against cavalry charges. 

It was a soft sweet morning, this eleventh of May. Little 
birds hopped around in the bushes and chirped their glad songs, 



1S64.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 589 

little knowing that in a short time their shady homes would be 
cut to pieces by balls and bursting shells ; that men and horses 
would be engaged in dreadful strife ; that the sky so bright and 
clear would soon be clouded M'ith the smoke from thousands of 
guns ; and that the ground, now wet with dew, would soon be 
drenched with human blood. 

The heavy tramp of horses on the Mountain road announced 
that Sheridan was moving. Pate's })icket on the extreme left re- 
ported the enemy dismounted and advancing in three lines. Oc- 
casional shots were now and then heard as the pickets fell back. 
The enemy appeared on the opposite side of the gully above de- 
scribed. Pate's skirmish line received them witli a warm fire 
and such precision of aim that Sheridan's first line gave way. 
Pate's men raised a yell and started in pursuit, but were recalled 
by the commanding officer. The second line came up and received 
a check, but held its ground, while an overwhelming force was 
moved to the right and charged the 15th Virginia skirmishers. 
Pate's right was broken and the line moved back, contesting every 
foot of ground. Pate drew in his skirmishers and united them 
with the main body, while Sheridan's skirmishers halted at the 
edge of the woods. Suddenly, as if by magic, a line of skirmishers 
appeared in front of the woods, moving with wonderful regularity 
upon the position occupied by Pate's brigade. This skirmish 
line was supported by a solid line of blue coats, extending far to 
the right and left of Pate's flanks. Captain Breathed opened on 
this line with two guns planted on Pate's right. The left flank 
of the enemy made a dash at tlie guns, but Breathed got them 
away. This movement towards the guns brought Sheridan's left 
flank on a line with Pate's right, and the fire was so galling that 
Pate was forced to take the second position Avtiich he had selected. 
This position was a deep cut on the east side of the Telegraph road. 
It was at this point that the last interview between General Stuart 
and Colonel Pate took place. Stuart had been watching Pate's 
movements, and, when too late, had found that he was not only a 
brave soldier, but a man of military genius. lie forgot the past, 
and pressed up to him amid the singing of bullets, and there 
the two men who had not spoken to each other for months clasped 
hands. " Colonel Pate," said Stuart, " you liave done all that any 
man could do. How long can you hold this position ? " '' Until 
I die. General.'' Again they clasped hands, and as General 



590 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. [^lay, 

Stuart rode away he remarked to one of his staff, " Pate is a 
hero." 

Sheridan's lines advanced. General Stuart sat on his horse and 
with his field-glass watched the fight. The tall form of Pate 
was conspicuous as he moved from point to point encouraging his 
men. The 6th and loth Regiments of Virginia cavalry w^ere 
driven from their positions, torn to pieces. Pate remained with 
the 5th alone. " One more round, boys, and then we'll get to the 
hill." His voice was clear and rang out above the battle's roar. 
The round was given. Pate fell dead, shot in the right temple. 
Stuart saw it through his glass. " Pate has died the death of a 
hero," he exclaimed, and his eyes flashed as he spoke. 

The 5th Virginia Cavalry went into the fight three hundred 
and fifty strong. The next morning one hundred and twenty 
men reported for duty. Witli Loniax out of the way, Sheridan 
wheeled to the left and moved against Weckham. When this 
movement was made, little Jimmy Moore^ a boy sixteen years old, 
one of Colonel Pate's orderlies, rode in and brought the body out. 
The Adjutant of the regiment, assisted by Jimmy, took it to the 
residence of Dr. Shepherd near by. Two of the Doctor's 
daughters were at home. The body was laid out on the floor of 
the sitting-room. The Adjutant had time only to write the 
Colonel's name and rank on a piece of paper and pin it on his 
breast, when the enemy charged into the front yard. The next 
day the ladies had the body buried ; and four days afterwards it 
was removed to Richmond, and now sleeps in Hollywood Cemetery. 
At the early age of thirty-two he ended his eventful career. In 
the same battle General Stuart, too, received his death-wound. 
May we not hope that the reconciliation of these two brave men, 
begun in tlieir last hour, has been confirmed and perpetuated in the 
better land ? 



j8,j4] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 591 



JAMES ^Y. :magruder, 

1st Lieutenant, Company K, 2d Virginia Cavalry, 

James W. Magruder, son of James Magruder, of Orange 
county, Viro;inia, Avas born on the 2d of February, 1839, near the 
village of Gordonsville. His early life was spent in the good 
old-fashioned way of country boys, his education preparatory to 
entering college going on meanwhile in the neighboring schools. 
Among others, he attended the excellent academy of Colonel 
Kemper, at Gordonsville. 

In October, 1857, he entered the University of Virginia as an 
academic student. At the end of the second session, having 
taken distinctions in the various subjects of Latin, French, Span- 
ish, Italian, and Mathematics, he returned home, and some time 
after entered some mercantile business at Union Mills, in the 
county of Fluvanna. 

In the spring of 1861, when the Albemarle Light Horse was 
organized under the command of Eugene Davis, Esq., of Char- 
lottesville, he joined it as a private. He was not, however, 
allowed to remain a private : his genuine soldierly qualities, 
courage in battle, patience and endurance under hardsliips, and 
fidelity to duty, soon won for him the rank of a non-commissioned 
officer, from which position, after long and arduous service, he 
was advanced to the office of Lieutenant. 

The Albemarle Light Horse — Company K, 2d Cavalry — 
has already been spoken of, and there will be occasion to refer to 
it again, in connection with others of its members wdio fell on the 
field of battle. In this company James Magruder was held in 
higli esteem as a spirited and dashing cavalryman; and when he 
was promoted to a Lieutenancy, it Avas in acknowledgment of 
his merits. The Light Horse had no lack of good officers, among 
whom will be remembered the gallant and chivalrous Tebbs. It 
was, then, a high compliment to Lieutenant Magruder when 
one of his men said of him recently, to the writer: — "He was 
the best officer the company ever had." 

He was constantly with his command, and participated in its 
countless battles and skirmishes, until he lost his life, gallantly 
defending Richmond against tlie bold cavalry raid of Sheridan. 
On the 0th of May, 18G4, that General, with the divisions of. 



592 THE UNIVERSITY MP:M0RIAL. 



[May, 



Merritt, AVilsou, and Gregg, was detaclied from the Union army, 
then at Spottsylvanla Court House, and senttto cut Lee's com- 
munications. Stuart at once dispatched Fitz Lee in })ursuit,wlio, 
overtaking the enemy's rear-guard, kept up an incessant skirmish 
with it. Sheridan succeeded in cutting the Central Railroad at 
Beaver Dam, and the Fredericksburg Road at Ashland, and then 
set out for Richmond. At Yellow Tavern, on the 11th, Stuart, 
who had taken a shorter route, interposed between him and the 
Confederate capital, and brought on the engagement in which he 
and Colonel H. Clay Pate were both killed, some details of which 
are given in the memoir of the latter. From Yellow Tavern 
Sheridan pressed on to Richmond, but the preparations for his 
reception induced him to attempt to recross the Chickahominy at 
Meadow Bridge. It was here that Magruder fell, while oppos- 
ing the passage of the enemy. 

He had by this time become 1st Lieutenant of the Light Horse, 
and in the absence of Captain Tebbs was in command of it. His 
regiment had thrown up hasty works, and repulsed several severe 
attacks. The rain was falling heavily, and the men had to use 
every precaution to keep their cartridges dry. Lieutenant Magru- 
der had just given an order not to fire until the enemy advanced 
to within a few paces, and while watching their approach he was 
struck in the forehead by a minie ball. He uttered no word when 
shot, merely folding his arms and giving a slight groan. 

His comrades took his watch and pocket-book, and in a few 
days returned and buried him on the battle-field. 

The writer knew him at college as a genial and courteous gen- 
tleman. A friend who served with him, and furnished the data 
from which these outlines are made, says of him : — " Pie was ex- 
ceedingly affable and kind to his men, but let no personal motive 
influence him in the exercise of his duty. He died esteemed by 
all his superior officers as a good soldier ; and if he had an enemy, 
none dared impugn his courage and fidelity." 



1SC4.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 593 

CHAELES LLOYD COLEMAN, 

Captain, "Morris Artillery." 

The unanimity of the Southern States in regard to all the great 
questions of State, and their hearty cooperation in the effort to 
maintain by the sword the same great principles, are not matters of 
surprise when we consider that they are different States rather than 
different j5<?op/cs. It was not only that identity of interest inclined 
them to the same political measures and bound them together when 
these measures were referred to the sword ; but, to a large degree, 
the same blood coursed through the veins of their citizens, and 
those thus bound by the ties of kinship cherished the views and 
opinions they had inherited Avith a feeling for which idolatry would 
be a name only a little too strong. Tiie reader of these pages will 
notice, for example, how many representatives of other States trace 
their ancestry back to Virginia; and what is true of Virginia is 
true, tliough in a less degree, of her Southern sisters. Thus it 
was that the electric power of i/ooc? and sentiment swept the circuit 
of these States, and intensified the unity which was based upon 
principle. 

These thoughts are suggested by the name that heads this paper. 
Captain Charles L. Coleman was a native of the State of 
Mississippi. His father, Colonel N. D. Coleman, is a Kentuckian 
by birth, but a grandson of Colonel Daniel Coleman, of Caroline 
county, Virginia, to which State and county he was sent at the 
early age of twelve to be educated by his uncle, " Thomas Burbridge 
Coleman, of Concord Academy, who, like his distinguished grand- 
son, Lewis M. Coleman, considered the occupation of educating 
the youth of the country the most useful and dignified employ- 
ment of man." 

His mother was a daughter of Captain Thomas Marshall, of 
Kentucky, grand-daughter of Colonel Thomas Marshall, of Vir- 
ginia, of Brandywine celebrity, and niece of Chief-Justice Mar- 
shall. Lie was thus so bound to the Old State that nothing Vir- 
ginian could be foreign to him. 

Chahlie was born October 1st, 1842, in Vicksburg, his father 

being at the time a resident of that place. Under competent 

teachers at home until he Avas twelve years old, and in the city 

schools until he was nearly fifteen, he made rapid progress in the 

38 



594 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. [jiay, 

rudiments of an education. A letter from Mr. J. T. Read, Super- 
intendent of the City Schools of Vicksburg, now before the 
'writer, says: — "He completed while in these schools his mathe- 
matical course as far as Spherical Trigonometry, read Caesar's 
Commentaries and Virgil's ^Eneid. In composition he was 
strictly original, comprehensive, and terse, handling any subject 
in a manner remarkable for one of his years. 

" In original elocutionary exercises, or in mere declamation, he 
was almost without an equal. His style was peculiar and impres- 
sive, his delivery nervous and captivating, and his expressions 
earnest and classical. 

" There were few youths more gifted than he. When once 
asked in what I deemed him most proficient, I could but answer, 
'In everything.' " 

From the public schools of Vicksburg CiiArvLiE was trans- 
ferred to Hanover Academy, then under the charge of his kinsman, 
Lewis M. Coleman. Remaining three years — two under Mr. 
Coleman and one under his successor, H. P. Jones — he entered 
the University of Virginia as an academic student at the opening 
of the session of 1860-61. During this year his younger brother, 
Harry Warfield (born November 8th, 1846), was at a preparatory 
school near the University. 

When the >var became imminent the two brothers united in 
asking permission of their father (who had before this removed to 
Madison Parish, Louisiana) to take part in the contest. Their 
letters were urgent and patriotic, and their father consented, pro- 
vided the Vicksburg " Southrons," a company whose officers and 
men were their friends, should be ordered to Richmond. The 
" Southrons " were soon sent forward to Virginia, and Charlie and 
Harry exhibited their letters to Professor Coleman, got permission 
to go, and straightway set off. The Vicksburg Herald thus speaks 
of their entering the service : — " While the ' Volunteer South- 
rons ' were in Richmond, awaiting the perfection of the organiza- 
tion in which they were to be sent to the front, two boys applied 
for membership, were mustered in, and started with that company 
to confront the enemy. They were respectively eighteen and 
fourteen yeai's of age." 

Harry Coleman's health soon gave way under the pressure of 
military service, and, because of his extreme youth, he was dis- 
charged and sent home. When he recovered he joined his oldest 



1SC4] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 595 

brother, Major James T. Coleman, of Miles's Legion, was made 
1st Lieutenant in the Voorhees Guards, of Louisiana, and after 
nearly three years' service, was captured at Port Hudson and sent 
to Johnson's Island. Charlie continued with his Vicksburg 
comrades until Professor Coleman organized the " Morris Artil- 
lery," when he procured a transfer to his old teacher's company, 
and served under him as long as he commanded it. 

At the reorganization in 1862, Professor Coleman was not 
reelected Captain of the Morris Artillery. There was, in conse- 
quence, much indignation among the subordinate officers, several 
of whom refused to accept the command which was tendered to 
them. Finally, when the work of reorganization had well-nigh 
perfected i\\e disorganization of the company, Chaeles Colemax, 
who had steadily supported the claims of Professor Coleman, was 
elected to the Captaincy and accepted the office. 

There is not space here to follow out the history of the Morris 
Artillery. It was part of the 1st Regiment of Virginia Artillery, 
whose officers were John Thompson Brown, Colonel, Lewis Minor 
Coleman, Lieutenant-Colonel, and David Watson, Major. The 
death of these men, in whose memoirs the general history of their 
artillery has been ti'aced, is enough to immortalize their command. 
If aught were wanting for the individual company officers, it 
would be enough for Captain Coleman's honor to repeat the 
statement of an officer who served with him, that he " was re- 
peatedly personally complimented by that great commander, 
General Robert E. Lee." 

After a long and arduous service of about three years, in which 
this young officer had approved himself as worthy of his noble 
ancestry, he fell at Spotsylvania Court House, on the morning of 
the 12th of May, 1864, while defending*his position after the 
Federals had captured the division of General Edward Johnson. 
The Union forces held the ground gained by this success, and the 
body of Captain Coleman was never recovered. 

Poor Harry was still a prisoner at Johnson's Island at the time 
of his brother's death. From that }»lace he was transferred to 
Point Lookout, on the 1st of April, 1865, to be exchanged. But 
the surrender of General Lee occurring a few days after, the ex- 
change was discontinued, and on the 25th of the month Harry 
Coleman was sent to Fort Delaware. 

The Federal Government was at this time offiirinsx the oath of 



596 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOETAL. 



[May, 



allegiance to all Confederate prisoners, and when Harry reached 
Fort Delaware all the soldiers in confinement there had taken it. 
They were not to blame for this, for the star of the young re- 
public had really set, Lee having surrendered and Johnston having 
entered into an agreement with Slierman. Yet he and the party 
of officers with which he came refused it when offered to them 
upon their arrival at the Fort. Their rejection of the oath was 
witnessed by the enlisted men, who were in a separate prison, and 
not allowed to hold intercourse with the officers. Among these 
private soldiers was a cousin of Lieutenant Coleman's, wlio had 
been a captive at Fort Delaware for nearly a year. On the next 
day he addressed him a long letter, from which the following are 
extracts : — 

" I was rather surprised at your whole party refusing the oath. 
I had been led to suppose by the action of this entire prison that 
its acceptance would be universal. . . . What, in God's name, 
can be your reason, Harry? I make it my boast that I am as 
good a Rebel as ever wore Confederate gray, but I shame to confess 
to my utter demoralization now. Could I see a reasonaf)le hope 
for our cause, would five hundred, would one hundred refuse the 
proffered amnesty, I am proud to think that there is no man here 
would make a greater sacrifice than I. . . . What more can we 
do than abide by the action of our own Government? . . . The 
object for which we have battled, that for which we have shed 
blood, spent treasure, and made sacrifices, was yielded when John- 
ston, in convention with Sherman, declared the willingness of 
the States to return to the Union. . . . The power of the Con- 
federacy is broken and destroyed ; we have nothing now to do but 
to wear the yoke of a subjugated people. Take the oath, Harry, 
and go home with me until the contest dies out in your region. 
My neighborhood is quiet, and I offer you such comforts and 
hospitalities as a devastated home can afford. 

" Your affectionate cousin, 

" W. L. R." 

To this letter Harry replied : — 

" April 29th, 1865. 
" Dear AVill :— 

" You say you were surprised at the action of 

our party in refusing the oath, and wish to know our 
reasons. Well, this is a point that I do not wish to argue ; and 



1804.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 597 



if it were not from you, I would not reply at all. But I will 
give you my views, as well as those of most of ray party, briefly : — 
We consider that so long as our Government keeps up a show of 
resistance, so long as there is the least organization, it is our duty 
to stand by our cause. . . . When we no longer have any Gov- 
ernment, then we- must await our separate States' action, and be 
guided to a great extent by them. 

" As for me, I do not expect to take the oath at all ; I would 
welcome expatriation first. I could say more, but as I feel very 
strongly, I would prefer not. . . . Do not be offended at any- 
thing I have said ; I don't wish to hurt your feelings, although 
our sentiments are very different." 

On the 5th of May he wrote to his brother. Major James T. 
Coleman, stating that his views had undergone some change, but 
that he did not consider himself absolved from his oath as long as 
any armed force represented the Confederacy. He had not heard 
that General Dick Taylor had surrendered, and Kirby Smith was 
still holding out west of the Mississippi ; but he never took the 
oath. On the 25th of the month, and in the nineteenth year of 
his age, he died in Fort Delaware ; having served his country 
nearly four years. His body was obtained by his brother-in-law, 
Theodore F. Randolph, of New Jersey, and interred in his family 
burying-ground at Easton, Pennsylvania. 

Of these two brothers, the Vichsburg Herald says : — " Sleep 
on, young and gallant soldiers ! The soil of Virginia rests lightly 
on the breast of one, and the thick forest of the historic Wilder- 
ness shall sing his requiem, and future travellers, as they tread the 
classic ground of Spotsylvania, will seek the spot where the 12th 
of May was made immortal. Young Harry sleeps on theconfines 
of mother earth and old ocean, in a calm, secluded spot, near the 
bastile which confined his body, but not his proud soul," 



5-98 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. p-^y^ 

WILLIAM Z. MEAD, % 

Lieutenant, Battalion of Sharpshooters, Deas' Brigade, Army of tlie West. 

Lieutenant William Zachaeiah Mead, the son of the Rev. 
Zachariah Mead, of the Episcopal Church, and Anna Maria Mead, 
was born at Richmond, Virginia, on the 29th day of November, 
A. D. 1838. His father died on the day the son reached his 
second year, honored and lamented by the Church and people 
whom he had served truly and faithfully during his life. There 
was still spared to the tender infant one of the kindest and 
gentlest of mothers to watch over him and to mould his growing 
character, and well did she perform her part. 

Lieutenant Mead received a most careful elementary school 
training. So soon as he was old enough, he was placed by his 
mother at the school of the late Franklin Minor, in Albemarle 
county, Virginia, where he was treated witli " watchful tender- 
ness, being the youngest of the school band," and carefully pre- 
pared for an early admission to the University of Virginia. In 
1854, however, just prior to his entry at tlie latter institution, we 
find him an honored member of the " Academy of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church in the city of Philadelphia," as appears by a 
certificate of the Rev. Dr. Hare, at that time Principal of the 
Academy, dated Easter Term of that year, directed to the Bishop 
of the Diocese and Board of Trustees, and commending him for 
industry, punctuality, and propriety of deportment. He entered 
the University in the fall of 1856, for the session 1856-7, as an 
academic student. He became a member of the Jefferson Debat- 
ing Society, in which he took great interest; and of the Kappa 
Alpha Society, a small band of brothers connected by ties which 
Avere known only to themselves. At the close of that session, 
liieutenant Mead took charge of a school in Goochland county, 
Virginia. In the fall of 1859 he returned to the University, 
session 1859-60, as a student of the law — the profession of his 
choice. Among his fellow-students of the University whose 
names will find a place in tiiis volume, we may mention the names 
of Colonels William N. Bronaugh and John B. Magruder; Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel A. S. Pendleton; Majors Joseph W. Anderson 
and F. W. Smith ; Captains Bradfute Warwick, William T. Has- 
kell^ William Bernard Meredith, Thomas Gordon Pollock, George 



1SC4.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 599 

R. Bedinger, and William M. Radford ; and Lieutenants William 
G. Field, Charles Ellis Miuiford, Charles M. Rives, David R. 
Barton, Isaac Talbot AValke, and W. B. Butler, all his' friends 
and acquaintances, some of whom were his most intimate friends. 
Of this number Ellis Munford Avas his room-mate and almost 
constant companion ; while three of them, Thomas Gordon Pol- 
lock, Ellis Munford, and Isaac T. Walke, were members of the 
Kappa Alpha Society. 

Completing the session of 1859-60, Lieutenant Mead entered 
the law school of Judge John W. Brokenbrough, in Lexington, 
Virginia, and was a student there when the muttering war culmi- 
nated in the sad reality, and ushered in a new and bloody scene 
then unknown in the annals of this country, in which almost 
every young man in the State of Virginia was to take a part. 
The subject of this sketch was a Union man in thought and act 
and feeling, but his life was bound up in his native State, his own 
Virginia. "As goes Virginia, so go I," he wrote a friend about 
that time. No thought other than the welfare and safety of his 
State prompted his action — that was sufficient. No thought or 
presentiment that he would be one of the victims sacrificed to the 
cruel Moloch of war would have deterred him for a moment; for 
such was his high-toned, gallant nature that he would willingly 
have laid down his life to save his native State and the South from 
the fury, desolation, and ruin then awaiting our fair country, and 
which had been prophesied by some of our most far-seeing and 
distinguished statesmen. 

Gallant, noble, patriotic son, he threw aside his student's gown, 
put behind him all the high hopes and aspirations which fired his 
ambition in the study of his profession, and disdaining ease and 
the comforts of life, of which he had neVer been deprived, he 
joined as a private soldier the 1st Virginia Cavalry, under the com- 
mand then of Colonel J. E. B. Stuart, a regiment afterwards recog- 
nized for the efficient service it had performed, but at first known 
because composed of the flower of the young men of the Valley 
and Piedmont Virginia. Not long, however, did Lieutenant 
Mead remain in this regiment, for he was promoted to a Lieu- 
tenancy and ordered to duty in the Army of the West, then under 
command of General Bragg. In this army he occupied a post 
of honor and of danger as an officer of the battalion of sharp- 
shooters of General Zach. Deas' brigade of infantry ; and soon, 



600 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL, 



[May, 



by his gallant conduct and noble bearing, became the favorite of 
the battalion, and won the confidence not only of his men but also 
of his superior officers. Faithful in the discharge of his duties, 
he was always in place and never shunned danger. On the 
morning of the 14th day of May, A. D. 1864, on the ever- 
memorable battle-field of Resaca, Georgia, while engaged in the 
heat of battle, he fell mortally wounded, and almost instantly died, 
sadly regretted and deeply mourned by all who knew him in life. 
Thus ended the life of one of A^irginia's most gallant, noble, and 
gifted sons. No higher eulogy can follow this young hero to his 
early grave than that Avhich is expressed in a letter from a INIajor- 
General of the Army of the West who had watched his career : — 
" He fell while gallantly defending the post of danger at Resaca, 
Georgia. I saw him in the heat of the engagement. Willie 
had, by his real gallantry, high culture, and intelligence, won the 
esteem and confidence of all his Generals." His grave was marked 
and remembered by friends, and so soon as the war was closed his 
remains were broujiht to his native State and laid beside those of 
his honored father in Richmond. Near the same spot where he 
is buried repose the remains of his friends and college-mates, 
Ellis Munford, Willie Pegram, and Tucker Randoljih; and of his 
former Chief, General J. E. B. Stuart, who fell two days before 
the subject of our sketch met his fate. A pure white marble, 
erected by gentle hands, marks the spot where he sleeps, bearing 
the simple inscription, " Thy son liveth " — the only consolation 
to the sad heart of a bereaved and loving mother, whose life was 
wrapped up in that of a noble and worthy son, save the remem- 
brance that he died at the post of duty, crowned with glory. 

" 'Tis well, — 'tis something we majr stand, 
Wliere he, in native earth, is laid ; 
And from his ashes may be made 
The violet — of Virginia's laud. 

" 'Tis little, but it notes the truth 
As if his noble form was blest, 
Among familiar forms to rest 
And in the places of his youth." 

Wo knew the subject of this sketch well — we knew him as 
Willie Mead — and claim with pride to have enjoyed the honor 
and pleasure of his friendship. But how can we tell how gifted, 
brilliant, and refined he was ; how filial, how loving and affec- 



164.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 601 

tionate, how generous and unselfisli, how patriotic, energetic, 
gallant, and brave, how devoted he was as a son and brother, 
how true and faithful as a friend ? He was a Christian soldier 
and a spotless gentleman — a few words that speak the highest 
praise that can bo bestowed upon human character. Of fine per- 
sonal appearance, and graceful, winning manners ; of a genial and 
cordial disposition, and possessed of great sprightliness and ever 
ready wit, he had a quiet and easy way of insinuating himself into 
the hearts of all those with whom he was thrown in intimacy. 
He was not a man of many friendships, because he did not choose 
to be ; but no one had more sincerely attached friends; and all who 
can claim the honor of his friendshij), especially his brothers in 
the Kappa Alpha fraternity, will ever remember him with tender- 
ness and mourn his untimely end. Of him a friend wrote, and 
wrote truly : — " It is a pretty good criterion of a man's character 
that those who know him best esteem him most highly ; and I 
never knew any one of whom this could be more truly said than 
of AViLLiE. It was in the unreserved intercourse of private 
friendship that the sterling qualities of his character were most 
conspicuous. He was a very kind friend, so encouraging in 
difficulties, and as joyful at another's success as if it were his 
own." Another friend and companion-in-arms thus gave a 
truthful picture of his character in a letter to a friend : — " I never 
met a man who M^as more thoroughly imbued with the spirit of 
his profession, or who more readily won golden opinions from all 
with whom he was thrown. I certainly have never met one who 
surpassed him in those social qualities which go to make up the 
' gentleman and soldier.' I remember once having to show some 
civilities to a gentleman from Tennessee, and I was riding with 
him through the winter-quarters of the " troops in Willie's 
division, when I suggested that we should ' drop in upon him for 
a few moments.' We called, but the moments lengthened into 
hours as we sat and listened to his most entertaining conversation ; 
and when we at last left, my acquaintance remarked that he had 
never seen Lieutenant Mead's superior in the points which I 
have mentioned." What a mass of testimony we might adduce 
from those who knew him well, of the strong and admirable points 
of his well-formed character! but we will forbear, making only 
one other quotation from the letter of one of the best observers of 
character it has ever been our pleasure to know : — " Rarely is one 



602 THE U^'IVEKSITY MEMOKIAL. 



[May, 



who has fixed opinions, as you know Willie had, so fair and 
unprejudiced towards an opponent as he was. He coukl discuss 
any political question — even those to which an allusion is apt to 
create a display of temper — as calmly as a problem in meta- 
physics. Had I differed with him radically on the questions 
which divided North and South, he was perhaps the only one of 
all my companions at the University of Virginia that it would 
have been prudent to have truly told so and have ventured to dis- 
cuss with on such subjects." Trnly was this a noble character; 
and though we have portrayed but feebly its beautiful traits, we 
feel there is no one among; those mentioned in this volume who 
deserves to be more truly honored than Willie Mead, though 
enrolled here among many of the once brightest and most shining 
lights of our Southern land ; and we feel that the green grass and 
beautiful flowers which grow upon and decorate the graves of our 
departed heroes in this spring-time, will typify the enduring 
remembrance of no one longer than that of this gallant soldier- 
son of Virginia by all who knew him. 



JAMES G. CARR, 

Private, Company K, 2ii Virginia Cavalry. 

James G. Caer, son of Di-. William G. Carr and Charlotte 
M., his wife, was born in Albemarle county, Virginia, February 
25th, 1843. 

Born and reared in one of the loveliest mountain districts of 
the old Commonwealth, the wild and romantic scenes surrounding 
him impressed their stamp upon his nature. His earlier life de- 
voted to field sports and manly exercises, in which he most 
delighted — now threadingthe valley,now climbing to the mountaiii 
top; now at the death of the fox, and now hastening to where 
the pack held the deer at bay — he had neither time nor inclina- 
tion for those vicious indulgences which too often throw their 
enchantments around the young. 

As a child he was very delicate, and by the advice of a medical 
friend, his father took him from school, and giving him command 
of a, horse, a dog, and a gun, suffered him to roam at will over 



1SC4. 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 603 



the farm to make for himself a constitution. The experiment 
succeeded admirably, and the time lost from his studies was Avell 
repaid by the health and activity acquired. He had learned to 
ride almost as soon as to walk; and being remarkably fearless, 
nothing afforded him more delight than to mount the most un- 
broken colt, or the most spirited animal he could find, and dash 
without a sensation of fear ov^er the hills and fields of his mountain 
home; and many were the exciting adventures, the hair-breadth 
escapes, through which he now passed ; but the knowledge of 
horsemanship thus gained was destined to be of great use to him 
in the branch of the service which he afterwards joined. 

As a schoolboy, his frank manners and genial nature made him 
a general favorite, and tiie only fight which he is known to have 
engaged in, while attending a large public school, was undertaken 
in behalf of a younger comrade whom his chivalrous s{)irit could 
not brook to see imposed on by a boy larger and older than him- 
self. Thus his friends delight to trace even in his boyish action 
that rare union of almost feminine tenderness of heart with great 
personal bravery which not all the hardening influence of a 
soldier's life could dissipate. " I can bear anything j)atiently, but 
seeing my mother's distress at parting with me," was his reply to 
a comrade who was condoling Avith him on his return to the hard- 
ships and privations of the army after his last furlough. And his 
last letter home, written from the trenches below Richmond, 
where his company was acting as infantry, and under fire every 
day, scarcely touches on the danger which he is encountering, but 
is filled with expressions of tenderness and pity for a little nephew 
lately left motherless. 

At the age of seventeen he entered the University of Virginia, 
where the rapid development of his mind and character gave 
promise of future usefulness and distinction. The same gentle- 
ness and purity of heart which had characterized him as a child, 
blending with the Avarm and earnest sincerity of his attachments 
in after-years, endeared him to all his friends and associates. 

At the opening of the war he was a member of the Albemarle 
Light Horse, a company Avhich had been formed under the prospect 
of hostilities, and Avhich Avas afterwards officially knoAvn as Com- 
pany K, 2d Virginia Cavalry. With this company he entered 
the service at once, and thenceforward devoted himself unre- 
servedly to the Southern cause, Avhich he held as sacred as did 
Richard the Crusades. 



604 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. pjay. 

Previous to the first battle of Manassas James was employed 
in drilling, picketing and scouting, after Avhich he was constantly 
engaged in active and arduous service until his death. Passing 
from one section of the State to another, confronting the enemy 
where his services were needed ; now on the Potomac, then in the 
Valley, and then on the Peninsula ; at one time defending Rich- 
mond from the Federal cavalry, then threatening Washington; 
following Stuart in his ride around McClellan's army; following 
the same bold leader on his raids in Maryland and Pennsylvania; 
with Jackson in his unrivalled exploits in the Valley ; fighting 
side by side with the gallant Ashby when he fell ; at first and 
second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, 
Cold Harbor, Malvern Hill, Sharpsburg, Gettysburg, Winchester, 
Cross Keys, Port Republic; in all these great battles and bold 
and daring raids, James Carr participated and approved himself 
a soldier. Although again and again exposed to the most imminent 
danger, having his horse killed under him at Kelly's Ford, and his 
comrades often struck down by his side; until his last fatal engage- 
ment he was never wounded. Two Captains commanding his 
company were killed and one Avounded. James was distinguished 
even among his comrades, the gallant band which composed the 
2d (than which, perhaps, no regiment in the service rendered 
more constant and efficient duty, or suffered more in casualties), 
for the enthusiasm, boldness, and intrepidity with which he 
charged in the fight and followed in the pursuit when the enemy 
were routed. Before entering the army he looked with awe upon 
death, and would turn pale at the sight of blood : so habituated had 
he become in the lapse of three years to the sight of wounds, suf- 
fering and death, that he passed along by the dead on the field 
without emotion, unless the face of a comrade looked up to him 
from the ground. 

The veterans of Napoleon did not fight as many battles, nor 
endure as many hardships, nor did they witness as much suffering 
and carnao-e as did our volunteer cavalrv. Nor since the davs of 
the old Cavaliers, when sword and lance, in hand to hand conflict, 
determined the succession to crowns and kingdoms, has such re- 
sponsibility devolved upon the individual members of any military 
corps as rested upon the members of the cavalry of the Confederate 
States, nor so much depended upon the intelligence and fidelity of 
each ; acting alternately as scouts and cavalry, mounted riflemen 



1S04. 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 605 



aud infantry, sometimes also as artillerists, they became familiar 
with every branch of the service, and shared the glories and 
dangers of them all. Often extended throno-h forest and under- 
brush, in attenuated line from ten to twenty feet apart, to make 
front to the heavy columns of the advancing foe, they engaged and 
routed him, fighting necessarily from under the eyes of their 
officers, and without their counsel or command. 

In every position in which he was called upon to act his part, 
James Caer won from his comrades and commanders the highest 
encomium man can bestow on man, that of discharging his every 
duty with ability, zeal, and fidelity. He furnished his own horses, 
and supplied himself with arms, saddles, oil-cloth, blankets, etc., 
from the stores of the enemy. After the first year o[ the war, his 
regiment being without tents, which it was impossible for them to 
carry upon their rapid and constant marches, he had to protect 
himself as best he could from burning suns and wintry winds, 
storms of rain, hail and snow, which often in bivouac, upon the 
march, on post and in the field, inflicted the severest suffering; 
all of which he endured with firmness and constancy, and even 
that cheerfulness which under happier auspices imparted its sun- 
shine to the circle of his home and friends. 

On the 21th day of May, 1864, a band of picked men from the 
2d, together with the other regiments of the brigade, consisting in 
all of about 80 men, were led some distance down the James 
river by Fitz Lee, and thrown, dismounted, upon Fort Kennon, 
under the impression that the garrison was weaker than it proved 
to be. The fort was not only amply garrisoned, but supported by 
gunboats, which by incessant cannonading added greatly to the 
terrible odds against our men. Charging up to the guns of the 
fort, our men were compelled to fall back tinder a terrible and 
destructive fire. James was among the foremost in the attack, the 
last in the retreat. When his comrades rallied after the repulse, 
his place was vacant. 

The following papers contain all the information his family ever 
received concerning his fate: — 

" Camp 2d Virginia Cavalry, t 

White Oak Swamp, 6^/i June, 1864. J 
" Dr. AVileiam G. Care, 

" 3Ii/ iJear Friend: — On reaching camp, the 25th of May, I 
found a portion of my company absent, having been detaile:l to go 



606 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[May, 



with General Fitz Lee upon an expedition to Charles City county. 
On the morning of the 26th one of the company returned and 
reported Jim missing ; I hoped, however, that he had only been 
detached by some means from his company, and would find his 
way back to it. But so many days have elapsed without his being 
heard from, that I am much afraid the best fate we can hope for 
him is that he was captured by the enemy. The uncertainty of 
his fate may well produce great anxiety; but I love Jim as if he 
were a near relation, and I know how dear he is to you all, and I 
will not despair of his safety until I have heard more in regard to 
him. 

" It is a matter of great regret with me that I can only gather 
the most unsatisfactory account of Jim's doings at Fort Kennon. 

" It seems that he had gone into two charges and come out safely. 
The third and last charge was made on an angle of the fort. 
Our men started from a piece of woods, crossed a cleared field 
fifty yards wide, and then entered an abattis of felled pines which 
extended up to the embankment. Through these pines the men 
had to scramble and crawl ; the comjianies got mixed up, so that 
when they reached the extreme point to which they charged to- 
wards the fort, James Woods (who saw Jim last) says Jim was 
the only man of his company whom he saw. 

" These two then got behind the same stump, and remained 
there firing their carbines until they were ordered to fall back. 
They fell back together until they reached the edge of the abattis 
where the open field commenced ; once more there was a momentary 
rally, and Woods says in the halt Jim was still unhurt and near 
him. 

" Jim is thus traced to the edge of th6 abattis in safety. He 
still had the open field to cross under full fire of the enemy, and 
after that no one can give any account of him. But no one saw 
any fallen body in the open field, and though Lieutenant Lastly 
and a man named Head crossed the field after AVoods, having 
been detained in an effort to bring Frank Nelson out, they saw 
nothing of Jim. 

" I would not attempt to raise any unreasonable hope in your 
bosom, and therefore tell you that I know Jim's enterprize and 
boldness well enough to be satisfied that he would have made his 
way out unless something happened to him. We are thus thrown 
back upon the proportion of killed and wounded. The killed 



ise4] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 607 

are about one to six or seven wounded. There are therefore six 
or seven chances to one in favor of his being still alive. 

"I have by no means despaired of seeing him again, nor should 
you; but you should at once taks steps to learn by flag of truce his 
fate. I need not say how deeply I sympathize with you and the 
rest of the family, and how sincerely I am grieved on my own 
account. Associated with him most intimately for more than three 
years, I had learned to love him very dearly for his many good 
qualities. I have marked him in the various relations of a com- 
panion, a friend, a son, and a soldier, and have admired him very 
highly in tiiem all. 

" May the God of our fathers and our God console all our 
bleeding hearts, and yet bring him safely back to us. 

" Very truly your friend, 

" W. W. Tebbs." 

Acting on Captain Tebbs' suggestion, Dr. Carr at once insti- 
tuted inquiries for his son by flag of truce; and through the un- 
tiring efforts of Mr. J. A. Winslow, of Boston, son of Commodore 
Winslow, who was educated at the University of Virginia, where 
he had formed the acquaintance and friendship of James and liis 
family, he received the official returns from more than a hundred 
prisons and hospitals. All were to the same melancholy purport, 
disclaiming all knowledge of such a prisoner, excepting the fol- 
lowing note received from a prisoner at Point Lookout: — 

" James G. Caer was taken prisoner with me, and we were to- 
gether at Belle Plains, Virginia, several days, during which time 
he was well. He was sent from there to Fort Delaware and I to 
Point Lookout, and I have heard nothing from him since we sep- 
arated at Belle Plain. 

"J. W. Hatcher, 

" Company A, 2d Virginia Cavalry." 

To this we add the statement of his relative, Captain J. O. 
Carr (laken prisoner soon afterwards) that the Surgeon (Dr. 
Martin) who took down the names of the prisoners at the White 
House, on their way to their point of destination, informed him 
on hearing his name "That a young man bearing the same name 
had passed the White House a few dnys before on liis M'ay to 
prison." Knowing of his cousin's disappearance. Captain Carr 
made minute inquiries, and the Surgeon, kindly referring to the 



608 THE TJNIVERSITV MEMORIAL. 



[June, 



record, read the discription given of the prisoner, which corres- 
ponded perfectly Avith Captain Carr's recollection of his cousin. 
This is all the information that the most untiring eiforts could 
procure. From these accounts his capture unhurt seems certain ; 
his fate afterwards is shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Let 
those who shudder at the horrors of Andersonville, and clamored 
for the blood of Werze, clear up the mystery. 



LEONARD A. HENDERSON, 

Captain, Company F, 8tli North Carolina State Troops, 

LeOjSTAED Alexander Hexdeesox was the eldest son of Archi- 
bald and Mary Steele Henderson, of Salisbury, North Carolina. 
On the maternal line he descended from General John Steele, 
Comptroller-General during the administration of General Wash- 
ington, and the intimate friend and confidential adviser of that 
illustrious man. He was also the descendant of Mrs. Elizabeth 
Steele, that pious and patriotic lady, so beautifully and touchingly 
connected with the history of North Carolina by the manner in 
which she relieved General Greene, who, fleeing before Corn- 
wallis, had come to her house weary, hungry, alone, and without 
money. On the paternal side he traces through those of his name 
Avhose lives have formed a part of the history of North Carolina 
from its earliest Colonial existence. He was born November 14th, 
1841, and was in his 2od year when killed. 

"When the war began he was an academic student at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia. Without consultation with, or even the 
knowledge of his parents, he volunteered on the 14th of April, 
1861, and went with the company of students to Harper's Ferry. 
The date of this expedition would put his name among the first, 
if not the very first, of that long list of Carolinians who distin- 
guished their native State by their courageous deeds in the great 
Confederate struggle. When the company of students returned 
to the University and disbanded, he, without returning home, 
repaired immediately to Fort Johnson, below Wilmington, where 
he again volunteered as a private, and worked in the trenches six 
weeks. From this point he Avrote to his father, asking him to 



^.(j.-, THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 609 

make no request for an appointment for him by the Governor, and 
stating that he " did not leave the University to get office, but to 
defend tlie Old North State." But Governor Ellis had already 
and Avithout solicitation given him the appointment of 2d Lieu- 
tenant, the notification of which had failed to reach him on 
account of misdirection. Well and nobly did he sustain the 
judgment of that distinguished statesman, by a course of conduct 
which, for its efficiency and popularity, gave additional lustre to 
an already honored name in North Carolina. 

Lieutenant Henderson's first appearance on a field of battle 
was at Koanoke Island, where, though a subordinate in rank, he 
was in command of his company. Here, when the men were re- 
quested to lie down, he alone kept his position, standing or moving 
back and forth in front of the line, while the air was filled with the 
unseen missiles of death. He was taken prisoner, with the entire 
garrison, and shortly after returned home on parole. But even in 
so unfortunate an affiiir as this. Lieutenant Henderson estab- 
lished his character as a soldier. "AVho is that young Hender- 
son from Salisbury?" afterwards inquired a distinguished gentle- 
man, who had also been captured at Roanoke Island, of another, 
who proved to be an intimate friend of the young man. When 
informed, he replied, " He is a gallant boy." 

Upon his exchange he was made Captain of his company, and the 
regiment was attached to General Clingman's brigade, whose for- 
tunes he followed without any special incident or opportunity of dis- 
tinction until the storming of Plymouth, where he was again con- 
spicuous for coolness and intrepidity. Said a writer in the Raleigh 
Confeder'cde, June 17th, 1864: — " In the charges at Plymouth he 
was one of the three officers of the regiment who led their com- 
panies." He came out of the battle unscathed, " under the pro- 
tection of a Divine Providence," as he himself expressed it, though 
his clothing was fairly riddled by balls. 

When Hoke's division — to which Clingman's brigade belonged 
— was ordered to A^irginia in the spring of 1864 for tlie protection 
of Petersburg, he participated in the battles about Drury's Bluff 
and between Petersburg and Richmond. In one of these he was 
painfully wounded in the thigh, but he refused to be relieved from 
duty, and the next day appeared at the head of his men. 

" During the engagement of the 20th of May, he was in com- 
mand of the skirmishers of our regiment, fifty in number. The 
39 



610 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. ^j^^^^,^ 

whole skirmish line was ordered to advance, but through some 
mistake, he alone received the order. Without hesitation he ordered 
forward his men, and without any support, he led them to the 
charge of the enemy's rifle-pits, under a heavy fire from the front 
and both flanks, gained his position, and held it until the regiment 
came to his support." Instances of this kind, occurring oftener, 
doubtless, than his friends at home were aware of, won for him the 
highest measure of confidence and admiration on the part of his 
comrades. His love for his men was as enthusiastic as theirs for 
him. Proud of their gallantry, he was jealous of the reputation 
of each individual. Being told by his Colonel on one occasion at 
Charleston, when about to go on some important service, "to leave 
the least reliable men behind to take care of the camp," he replied 
promptly, " I have not an unreliable man in my company." 

Captain Henderson's next appearance — and his last — on the 
field of battle was at Second Cold Harbor, June 1st, 1864. On 
the evening of that day. General Meade having arrived, gave 
orders for an immediate attack upon our forces in order to secure 
the heights around New Cold Harbor and Gaines' Mill. At four 
o'clock Wright and Smith made the attack, and succeeded in car- 
rying the first line of rifle-pits, but were driven from them. They 
had been repulsed three times, with hardly any loss on our side, 
and, as an officer of the 8th jSTorth Carolina wrote, "all were jubi- 
lant of victory, when the brigade on one side gave way, allowing 
the enemy to get on our flank and rear." The Colonel was at the 
time, supposed to have been killed, and Captain Henderson was 
called on by the officers to lead the regiment. Casting aside his 
sword, he took up a musket and led the command to the charge. 
Just as the enemy were forced back, he fell j)ierced by a musket- 
shot, and was borne bleeding from the field. He lived about two 
hours, and died quietly, after giving good advice to the few men 
around him. Thus passed away the great sjsirit of this young 
Carolinian. 

Below we give a letter from a former Lieutenant-Colonel of the 
8th North Carolina to Mr. Archibald Henderson, dated June 
24th, 1864 :— 

"J/t/ Dear Sir : — I have just received intelligence of the death 
of my valued young friend, your sou. Captain L. A, Henderson, 
and I drop the tear of friendship at his untimely fall. Of him I 
can say, I never had a friend I loved more. Warm-hearted, gen- 



:sc4 ] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 611 



erous, noble^ and brave, fearless and conscientious in the discbarge 
of his duty, he was an example to those of his age, and to those 
older he presented an opportunity of commendation. Whilst his 
superior officer, I have on two occasions had to order him to his 
quarters when sick and I knew his life would be risked by exposure. 
If I can thus testify to his worth as an officer, much more might I 
say of him as a man. I have two noble little boys of my own, 
and I can desire nothing more than that they may be like your 
noble boy. 

" Perhaps I may intrude by these expressions upon the privacy 
and sacredness of your sorrow; but I know you will pardon me, 
for you cannot deny me the privilege of weeping with you over 
one whom I loved with the love of an elder brother. 

"G. W , 

"Late Lieutenant- Colonel, d'cJ' 

"'Among others who sought to comfort the bereaved parents was 
a member of President Davis's Cabinet, who in his letter used the 
following language : — " I had a high appreciation of your noble 
son, who fell so gallantly in the cause of his country. You may 
well exclaim, with the old Earl of Ormond, 'I would not give 
my dead sou for any living son in Christendom.' " 



JAMES H. DPEWRY, 

Private Company A, 13th Virginia Cavalry. 

James H. Drewry, son of John and Elizabeth Drewry, was 
born near Drewrysville, in Southampton county, Virginia, on the 
10th of June, 1839. His parents dying while he was quite young, 
lie was left to the intelligent care of an uncle who determined to 
give him every educational facility. To this course the uncle and 
guardian was inclined both by the evidences of intellectual power 
which liis nephew gave, and by his passion for books even when a 
child. 

James Dreavry was accordingly put at the best school in the 
county, and from this, at the proper period of his life, he was 
transferred to Hanover Academy. He remained at the Academy 
until the close of the session in the .summer of 1858, and in the 



612 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[J line, 



following October entered the University of Virginia, taking the 
schools of Ancient Languages and Mathematics. The next year 
he returned and took the same ticket, with the addition of Modern 
Languages and Chemistry ; and at the end of the session he re- 
ceived distinction at both examinations in the senior class of Greek, 
and diplomas in Latin, French, and Chemistry. In 1860 he 
entered the Medical Class and became a candidate for graduation. 
The intermediate examinations he passed satisfactorily, receiving 
distinctions in all the subjects embraced in the course ; and he had 
ev^ery prospect of success, when his studies were interrupted by the 
war. 

When the expedition was made against Harper's Ferry in the 
spring of 1861, he was a member of one of the companies of 
students formed for that purpose; and after the return of the 
University companies, he could not consent to remain at his books 
when the whole country was preparing for the impending struggle. 
Accordingly, without a regret for the professional degree he was 
surrendering, he returned home and enlisted in the "Southampton 
Cavalry," which upon the organization of regiments, became Com- 
pany A, 13th Virginia Cavalry. 

Dedicating his life to his country by this act, he followed her 
standards through the long catalogue of battles and skirmishes 
with which the reader has been familiarized by the pages imme- 
diately preceding. During the more than three years of arduous 
service, he never asked for, nor seemed to desire, a furlough ; and 
he was not once absent from his command, except after he was 
wounded in the severe cavalry engagement at Brandy Station. 
He was several times offered rank, but did not care for it. An 
excellent shot, the picket-line was his favorite position ; and, as 
though he courted danger, he would often volunteer to take the 
place of some comrade, when not ordered to the front himself. 

His brilliant career as a cavalryman was terminated on the first 
day of June, 1864, near Ashland, Virginia, where he fell, instantly 
killed by a bullet from the enemy. 

James Drewry was frank and generous in his youth ; as a man 
he was somewhat reserved in manners, and slow to form attach- 
ments, but true to those friends to whom he opened his heart. In 
Company A he had opportunity to study his comrades, and they 
had often occasion to admire his noble qualities ; thus he grew into 
their esteem, and attained a popularity far more lasting than if it 



ISC-l.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 613 



had been won in a day. They will cherish his memory as a 
patriot and soldier, worthy the high compliment paid him by the 
lamented Major Gillette of his regiment, when he said, '' I have 
no better soldier in my command than James Deeavey. 



WYATT BROTHERS. 

Richard Overton Wyatt, Assistant Surgeon, C. S. A., and 
James Walter Wyatt, Captain, Albemarle Artillery. 

These young men were the sons of Richard W. and Harriet K. 
Wyatt. They were born in Goochland county, Virginia, the 
former on the 18th of April, 1837, the latter on the 9th of 
June, 1841. Their ancestors were of English descent, having 
emigrated to Virginia at an early period in her colonial history. 
Richard Wyatt, their grandfather, who was an officer of note in 
the Revolutionary War, married and settled in Louisa county. 
His only son, Richard, married Miss Harriet K. Harris, of 
Hanover, and removed to Goochland county. Here he reared a 
numerous family; eight children living to be grown. Among 
these were but two sons, Richard Overton and James Walter, 
upon whom naturally rested the eye of pride and of hope. 

These boys, characterized in some respects by the same sterling 
qualities, were of very different temperament; Richard being 
lively and demonstrative, while the younger brother was reserved 
and delicately sensitive. Yet these natures seemed to supplement 
each other, and between them subsisted a perfect harmony and a 
beautiful affection. 

In 1851 Mr. Wyatt, with a view to better facilities for educa- 
tion, purchased a farm in the vicinity of Charlottesville, and 
took up his residence there. Determined to spare no pains to 
give his sons an education, he sent them to the best preparatory 
schools. In 185- Richard Avas transferred to Randolph Macon 
College, where he was graduated Master of Arts, and in 1859 the 
two brothers became students at the University, the elder in the 
medical course, the younger in the academic. From the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, at the close of this session, Richard went to 
Baltimore, and pursued the study of his profession in the Uni- 



61-4 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. [j^ue, 

versity of Maryland, where on the 2d of March, 1861, he received 
the degree of Doctor of Medicine. 

In 1860 James returned to the University and resumed his 
academic studies. During the past session he was distinguished 
at both examinations in the Senior Class of Latin and in the In- 
termediate Class of Mathematics. This year the political dis- 
turbances of the country greatly engaged his attention. In the 
spring of '61 he joined the expedition to Harper's Ferry, and upon 
his return he made known to liis parents the state of excitement in 
the University, declaring that it was simply impossible to fix 
his mind on books, and desiring to enlist in the Southern 
army. His father pressed hira to remain at College, urging the 
probability that he would never again have the opportunity he 
then enjoyed. Thus persuaded, James \Yyatt continued in his 
classes until the close of the session, and graduated in the school 
of Mathematics. 

Immediately upon his return home he began to prepare to enter 
the military service. His taste for mathematics directed him to 
the artillery, and he accordingly volunteered as a private in a 
company from Albemarle, commanded by Captain Southall. This 
company, after drilling in Richmond, was ordered to the Peninsula, 
where it remained until General Johnston retired from York- 
town. 

It was during this Peninsula campaign that a great shadow fell 
upon his heart, saddening all his future life. In the month of 
November, 1861, a battle was anticipated about Yorktown, and 
Dr. Wyatt — then an Assistant-Surgeon and on duty in the Rich- 
mond hospitals — made a visit to his brother, thinking to ad- 
minister to him in case of need. The battle did not take place; 
but Dr. Wyatt, unused to the exposure of camp, contracted a 
deep cold, which settled on his lungs. He returned to his home 
in Albemarle, where, after a most rapid decline, he died on the 16th 
of the following December. 

At the reorganization of the Albemarle Artillery, private 
Wyatt was unanimously elected to the command of his company. 
After the wearying retreat from Yorktown, his battery, having no 
field-pieces, was stationed at the fortifications around Richmond, 
and consequently took no part in the great battles which soon 
occurred. From Richmond the company was transferred to 
Petersburg, near which place it was encamped during the fall and 



I8r4.] 



THE UXIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 615 



winter of 1862. Just before leaving for Petersburg, Captain 
Wyatt succeeded, through the influence of Lieutenant-Colonel 
Coleman, in exchanging his siege guns for field-pieces, among 
which were two of the celebrated Napoleon guns. His battery 
now ranked among the best, and he was anxious for active service. 
What was his chagrin then at being left in camp while a part of 
his regiment was sent forward with General Lee ! In a letter 
written home about this time, he remarked that he was tempted 
to resign his commission and enlist in some cavalry company in 
order that he might see something of the war. 

When the spring campaign of 'G3 began, the Albemarle Ar- 
tillery was ordered to North Carolina, and here really began its 
military career, and its experience of long marches and the trials 
incident to them. In the attack on Newbern and in the siege of 
AYashington it rendered efficient service. With Pettigrew's 
brigade it returned in May to Virginia, and, after encamping a 
while at Hanover Junction, took up the line of march M'ith the 
Army of Northern Virginia for Maryland and Pennsyh'ania. At 
Gettysburg Captain Wyatt was reported among the slain, and 
his parents and sisters mourned him long as dead. At Bristoe 
Station a piece of shell passed through the skirt of his coat, but 
did him no other injury. 

During the winter of 1863-4, the company was encamped near 
Lindsay's Turnout, on the Virginia Central Railroad, and only 
fifteen miles distant from Captain Wyatt's home. In the follow- 
ing May, in consequence of the illness of one of his sisters, he 
obtained leave of absence for two days and hurried to her. This 
proved to be his last visit to his family, and the last time that 
they, who loved him most, looked upon his living form. 

Once more in the saddle, he marched with General Lee to meet 
General Grant at the Rapidan. History has rendered the reader 
familiar with the great struggle that marked the way of the two 
hostile armies from this point to the Chickahominy ; he has heard 
over and again the story of the Wilderness, and of Spotsylvania 
• Court House; he has listened with keenest interest while men 
have proudly related the many instances of heroism displayed on 
those fields ; he knows how Grant flanked and fought, and fell 
back discomfited, and flanked and fought again, until at last the 
two armies faced each other once more on the historic ground of 
Cold Harbor; and he has wondered at the stern courage and 



616 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. ^j^^^, 

sublime endurance of his countrymen Avho, in this brief campaign, 
with an army of less than fifty thousand men^ had inflicted upon 
the Federals, according to their own estimate, a loss of sixty 
thousand ! Truly they had " done enough for glory." 

With this great campaign closed the life of Captain Wyatt. 
After being actively engaged during all its progress, and having 
distinguished himself for personal bravery, and for efficiency as an 
artillery commander, he fell in the heat of the conflict at Cold 
Harbor, June 3d, 1864. Here the Albemarle Artillery, with a 
battery from Poague's battalion, were sustaining in ojJen field, and 
replying to, the enemy's fire. Seeing his men falling fast around 
him. Captain Wyatt assisted in changing the position of one of 
his guns ; then kneeling beside it to watch the effect of the shots, 
lie was killed instantly by a ball through the head. The company 
had entered the fight Avith eighty men ; at its close thirty-three 
were killed or disabled, among them every commissioned officer 
of the battery. When the firing ceased and his men came to take 
their dead Captain away, it was found that his body had been 
pierced by twenty-three shots ! By his side lay dead his noble 
young Lieutenant, Charles M. Rives. The two officers who had 
thus fought and fallen together were buried in the same grave; 
whence before long they were transferred to Richmond. 

From several obituary notices, written at the time of his death, 
the following extracts are made to show the estimate in which 
Captain Wyatt's friends held him : — 

"He was in his twenty-second year, and was at the time acting 
as Major ; a post to which he would have been commissioned in a 
few days, if it had not already been done. 

" Captain Wyatt was more than an ordinary man ; of 
scrupulous integrity and rare intelligence, he possessed all those 
amiable traits of character which made him a favorite with all 
who knew him. Modest as he was brave, generous as he was 
sincere, ardent in his affections and friendships, he was naturally 
of quick perception and tender sensibility. From a private's 
position he rapidly rose to the rank of Captain by his talent and 
heroism, and at the time of his death was commanding as Major. 
He had been in several hard-fought battles, and always managed 
his battery with consummate skill. Prompt in action and almost 
unerring in judgment, he was ready in taking positions assigned 
him, and always Avith a proper care for his men. When he re- 



1564.] THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 617 

ceived the order to occupy a certain position preparatory to the 
battle of Cold Harbor, Captain Wyatt rode until midnight in 
order to ascertain the exact locality, that he might construct forti- 
fications for his men ; but alas ! he was unable to erect the works 
he intended. His battery fought the enemy from an open field, 
bravely and with fine effect. . . . The history of this war can 
furnish no braver soldier than he. Scarcely yet a man in years, 
he had the mind and character of a man of mature age. He was 
not only a man of tried bravery and superior talents, but he united 
Vvith these, kindness, geniality and frankness. Had he been 
spared, his State and country might well have awarded him yet 
greater honors, for he was already worthy of tliem. His genius 
and ambition could have secured for him as high position in the 
civil department as his courage had gained in the army. Young 
as he was, he won a reputation which will live among the brightest 
of the war." 

As soon as it was practicable, all that was mortal of James 
WYAtt was removed from Richmond to his fiither's residence in 
Albemarle. And there he now rests by the side of his only 
brother, Richard, whose early death, caused by the desire to serve 
/u'm, he had never ceased, while living, to mourn. 



W. WILLOUGHBY TEBBS, 

Captain, " Albemarle Light Horse," Company K, 2d Virginia Cavalry. 

•Captain William Willoughby Tebbs, son of Dr. Fouchee 
Tebbs and Margaret Tyler, and grandson of ^Colonel Willoughby 
Tebbs, of Dumfries, Virginia, born September 7th, 1827, in 
Loudon county, Virginia, was killed instantly in a cavalry engage- 
ment, Friday, June 24th, 1863. 

The days of liis boyhood were spent in Middlcburg, Loudon 
county. He here attended the village school, and was noted when 
a boy for his quickness of perception and aptness to acquire. At 
tiie age of nineteen he received the appointment of State Student 
of the University of Virginia. His success here was rewarded 
with diplomas in several schools, especially the Schools of Ancient 
Languages and Mathematics. He then became assistant in the 



618 THE u^'ivEEsnv memoeial. 



[June, 



Academy of Mr. Franklin Minor, of Albemarle county, where 
he remained for five years. Here he acquired a desirable reputa- 
tion as a teacher, and during one year, in addition to his duties in 
the Academy, he attended the lectures of Professor Courtenay, of 
the University, on " Mixed Mathematics," as it was then called, 
and received a diploma as Graduate in that school. 

At this period of his life he conceived for the character of that 
Roman of Romans, that genuine upright and downright man, 
Franklin Minor, of Albemarle, the most intense admiration. 
This model character exerted over Captain Tebbs a powereful in- 
fluence, even to the day of his death. After he left the Academy 
in Albemarle, for whose people he cherished the most romantic 
attachment, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics in a Col- 
lege in Mississippi. He returned to Virginia after an absence of 
a few months, and married his cousin, Mary E. Tebbs, of Fauquier. 
After conducting a school in this county for two years, he united 
with Colonel W. LeRoy Brown in opening Blooralield Academy, 
in Albemarle county, as a High School preparatory to the Uni- 
versity. Here he added greatly to his reputation as a teacher. 

Of ardent temperament and chivalrous nature, he early espoused 
with all the ardor of his character the cause of the South, and was 
one of the first to be enrolled among the privates of the " Albe- 
marle Light Horse," a company commanded by Captain Eugene 
Davis. Pie loved the South and all that belonged to it ; but 
Virginia he adored, worshipped, and for his friends of Albemarle 
he cherished the warmest affection. ' He was open, tree, social, 
humorous to his friends : to strangers he was cold and reserved ; 
hence he was best appreciated only by his most intimate friends. 

In 1858, one year after the death of his wife, he was confirmed 
by Bishop Meade at St. Paul's Church, Albemarle county. He 
ever remembered the solemn vows then taken, and directed 
his life in accordance therewith. In a letter written a few days 
before the battle occurred in which he was killed, he said : — 

" Providence still protects me, and if He sees fit, will carry me 
through safely ; if not, what better death could a man die, or 
could his friends wish for him, than to die in defence of such a 
cause ? " 

In the cavalry engagement of the 24th of June, 1864, near 
Nance's Shop, in Charles City county. Captain Tebbs was killed 
while gallantly leading his company to the charge of the enemy's 



ISM.] THE Uls'IVERSITY MEMOETAL. 619 

fortifications. Thus ended the life of a brave, chivalrous, generous 
son of Virginia. 

The esteem in which he was held cannot be better shown than 
by the following extracts from the newspapers, published at the 
time of his sad death : — 

The Charlottesville Chronicle said : — " A telegram received 
here on Sunday briefly announced that this brave and faithful 
officer [Captain W. W. Tebbs] was killed on Friday last in an 

action with the enemy's cavalry Captain Tebbs has been 

in command of the Albemarle Light Horse now more than two 
years, before which he was a private in the company. lie entered 
the service in April, 1861, and it may almost be said tliat he never 
lost a day from his duties. He has been incessantly in his saddle, 
and passed through battles and combats without number. He 
had entirely escaped injury until this fatal occasion. The de- 
ceased was our personal friend, one whom we had known and 
intimately associated with since his residence in this county. He 
was of an impulsive, open, chivalrous nature — warm in his 
friendships, amiable in his feelings, strong in his prejudices. His 
mind was a very quick and active one, and improved by study 
and habits of reflection. His opinions were fixed, and he regulated 
his conduct by his convictions of duty. 

"As an officer, it is our impression that he had few superiors. 
He possessed every quality to make a good officer — quick percep- 
tion, great energy and activity, and conscientiousness. He was 
very popular with his men, and displayed much address in con- 
trolling them. His death will leave a void in a wide and devoted 
circle of friends. He is another bright mark, so many of which 
have been reached of late. He was one of those so firm, so com- 
pact, so confident, so overflowing with life, that we can hardly 
realize that he too is silent." 

The Richmond Enquirer published the following: — 

" Captain W. Willoughby Tebbs. 
" Justum et tenacem propositi virum. 

" Captain W. AV. Tebbs, commanding the Albemarle Light 
Horse (Company K, 2d Regiment Virginia Cavalry), was killed 
instantly while charging the enemy, in the engagements of Hamp- 
ton's and Sheridan's troops, in Charles City county, on the 24th 



620 THE UIv^IVEKSITY MEMORIAL. [j^ne, 

iiist. His remains were deposited in Hollywood Cemetery. His 
devotion to the cause of the South was of the most ardent nature. 
The secession of Virginia found him a private in a choice cavalry 
company of Albemarle county, in which capacity he faithfully 
performed all the arduous duties required, till he was called to its 
command. His earnest love of duty and firm determination to be 
an active participant in the great war of independence, enabled 
him, without a murmur, to subject his delicate physical organiza- 
tion to privations and exposures equal to any endured by those 
of iron constitutions. He was one of that class of educators of 
Southern youth, to produce whom has been a boast of the Uni- 
versity of Virginia. As a teacher, his labors were eminently 
successful. They were confined to Fauquier and Albemarle 
counties, with the exception of a brief interval, during which he 
filled the chair of Mathematics in a Southern College. 

"He possessed talent of the highest order, and enjoyed a famil- 
iarity with the literature and a critical knowledge of the structure 
of the Latin and Greek languages possessed by few scholars of his 
age. To this classical learning he superadded a familiar acquain- 
tance with the higher mathematics. 

" He knew no other incentives to action than duty and honor. 
While to those who knew how to appreciate his genial humor, his 
superior talents, and his devotion to principle, his death will be a 
sad loss, his memory will be cherished by them as one of the noble 
martyrs Virginia has sacrificed as a pledge of her devotion to the 
cause of freedom and Southern independence. 

"Though the death of Captain Tebbs, occurring in the full vigor 
of his manhood and usefulness, in the thirty-seventh year of his 
age, with a mental and moral cultivation rarely equalled, is a sad 
bereavement to his family, his relatives, and friends, they have 
the sweet consolation that he died a Christian, in the performance 
of his duty. A nobler end is not awarded to man. For many 
years he had been a.communicant of the Episcopal Church. His 
firm faith and irreproachable integrity, his fearless spirit and his 
love of what is pure and high and noble, will long be cherished 
by his friends as meet memories of his many virtues. 

" May a merciful Providence protect his young orphan daughters 
and be to them a father." 



is,j4.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 621 



LOUIS MAGOON ROGERS, 

Lieutenant and Ensign, JOtli Virginia Infantry. 

He was the son of Geor2;e S. and Marg-aret J. Rosjers, and was 
born in Accomac county, Virginia, February 11th, 1841. Plis 
family, on both sides, are among the best and most respected 
people of his native county. The home in which he spent his 
childhood and youth was pure, hap])yj delightful. Living in the 
extreme eastern part of the State, the Chesapeake Bay on one side 
ol him and the Atlantic Ocean on the other, from his earliest 
recollection he was a witness of the grand and ever-changing 
moods of a boundless expanse of waters. His eye was familiar 
with the rushing of the white-crested waves, his ear with the wild 
scream of the sea-bird and the hoarse murmur of the storm. 
Among such scenes he received his first impressions of the physi- 
cal world, and they were not without their effect in producing the 
simplicity and nobleness of his character. 

On the 1st of October, 1855, when but fourteen years of age, 
he entered Richmond College as a student. Boy as he was, 
and of an exceedingly slight and boyish appearance, he imme- 
diately took rank among the very best scholars in his classes. 
All were surprised at the ease M'ith which he mastered the 
most difficult subjects, and delighted with his apparent uncon- 
sciousness of the possession of extraordinary powers. He remained 
three years at Richmond College, and went from there to the 
University of Virginia, entering that institution in the fall of 1858. 

"Here," writes one who was a student with him, "he was 
known as a student. Modest and retiring to a fault, he was yet 
earnest and faithful in the discharge of his collegiate duties. His 
manners were gentle, easy, and natural, his mind sound and 
vigorous, and his life and character singularly pure. During a 
long and intimate acquaintance I do not remember a single word- 
spoken by him which might not have been appropriately uttered 
in the presence of his mother and his sister. He remained at 
the University two years, and graduated in the Latin and Italian 
languages. 

The breaking out of the war interrupted his studies, and he 
went in feeble health to liis home in Accomac. 

In the very beginning of the war the "Eastern Shore" was 



622 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. ^j^^e, 

occupied by the Federal forces, and guards were stationed to pre- 
vent citizens from passing over to join the Gonfederates. United 
States vessels, too, kept up a vigilant patrol on the bay. Feeling 
that he was scarcely able to endure the fatigue and hardship of 
service in the field, Louis for a time remained at home compara- 
tively contented. But when the campaign of 1862 opened, he 
l)ecanie restless and impatient of his inactivity. AVith a love of 
country worthy of the best days of the Revolution, he burned to 
join the ranks of his friends, who had just driven McClellan and 
his splendid army from the very gates of Richmond. In com- 
pany with a few friends, he eluded the vigilance of the coast- 
guards, and in a small boat ran the blockade of Federal cruisers 
and landed safe in Mathews county. Thence he proceeded to 
Richmond, and on the 24th of August, 1862, joined a company 
composed of refugees from Accoraac and Northampton. This 
company became Company F of the 46th Virginia Regiment, 
commanded by Colonel R. T. W. Duke, of Charlottesville, and 
attached to Wise's brigade. 

At the time of his joining it the brigade was stationed at 
Chaffiu's Farm, charged with the duty of watching the movements 
of the enemy on the Peninsula. Louis had been but a short time 
Avith his company when he was assigned, by order of General 
Wise, to duty as Clerk in the Adjutant-General's office. In this 
position he anxiously watched the progress of events. The 13th 
of December, 1862, he writes : — " We of General Wise's brigade 
are still seven miles below Richmond, near the James River ; and 
Mdiile General Lee is about to fight one of the bloodiest battles of 
the war, we are about to be the merest spectators, or rather, lis- 
teners. I have wished more than once that I could take part in 
the conflict already begun near the Rappahannock, but I must 
remain quietly where I am placed. It is even intimated to me 
that, writing as I am in the Adjutant-General's office, I will 
hardly go into a fight with my company; but I cannot be detained 
here when my comrades from Accoraac go into the fight." He 
adds, in closing his letter, words of cheerfulness and hope: — "Do 
not be uneasy about me or about the issue of the contest, which is 
evidently to be tremendous. God will care for me as well as for 
the issue of the approaching battle. He sees all things, past, pre- 
sent, future. Trust Him." 

In one of his letters from Chaffin's Farm, he proposed to give 



lgC.1.1 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. G23 

his mother some idea of his way of spending the Sabbath. Says 
he : — " Soon after breakfast it is ray custom to repair from head- 
quarters to my regiment, where we have a chaplain. He some- 
times preaches at a neighboring church. On such occasions, being 
left to ray own resources, I go into the woods, to some secluded 
spot, where I read my Testament without interruption. Alone, 
I try to commend myself and you to the Creator. By medita- 
tion and study I try to withdraw ray mind from the vexments of 
the world, and to concentrate my thoughts upon the vasty future, 
whose portals of joy or despair are so near to all of us." All 
his letters are pervaded by a deep cheerful spirit of truthfulness 
and reliffious devotion. From his becoming a member of the 
First Baptist Church in Richmond, in the first year of his student 
life, he was truly a Christian. All the powers of mind, soul, and 
body, w'ere consecrated to the service of God. His religion was a 
power as uniform and constant in its operation as the force of 
gravity, and as noiseless and unobtrusive. 

Early in 1863 Wise's brigade was ordered to South Carolina. 
Young Rogers went with it, and, with the exception of some 
slight skirmishes, for more than a year saw no active service. By 
this long waiting his spirit was chastened and ennobled. Nor was 
his time spent without good effects upon his comrades in arras. 
He writes to his motlier: — "Let us never forget, ray dearest 
mother, that our Father above is not willing to do His children 
any harm ; and even if the body seems to suffer here in this 
world, may not the soul be happier in heaven on account of that 
very suffering? Oh, motlier, let us trust Jesus. I pray to Hira 
to enable rae to do my duty in His name. I find, thank God, 
that I am useful as a Christian. By holding prayer-meetings and 
Bible-class in ray company the boys who are religious have greatly 
improved. They are much more thoughtful and attentive than 
they were when I first returned to my company." 

The scenery on the South Carolina coast reminded him of his 
own home. He writes from camp at Church Flats: — "I love to 
lie on these banks and watch the sea-birds plunging beneath the 
surface of the water, and emerging again with the clamor of suc- 
cess or failure. I love to see the wavelets chasing to the shore 
their ' file leaders.' Perhaps the very water at my feet has washed 
the shores of ' Snugly ' (his home) — who knows? Ah, how glad 
I would be to be borne on them when these waves go there again! 



624 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. ^j^^^^ 

I am pleased with anything so much like home as tlie country 
here. ' There is no place like home ! ' You can never know this 
as I know it until you are driven into the land of strangers ; and 
I devoutly hope this calamity will never befall you. When the 
goodness of Heaven which is protecting us shall allow it, I shall 
be happier than I am now ; because, though I am happy now, ray 
happiness shall be ten times increased by the return to Snugly." 

This was never to be. In the spring of 1864 his brigade was 
ordered to return to Virginia, and for the first time during the 
war held a position in the immediate presence of the enemy. It 
■was a splendid body of men. As it filed past the shattered and 
M^ar-worn veterans that lay in the trenches around Petcrburg, 
they called out pleasantly, "What division is that?" alluding to 
its full, undepleted ranks. But though late, it too was to pass the 
ordeal of fire. The Confederate Congress had just created the 
office of Ensign ; and on the recommendation of the officers, Louis 
was made Ensign of his regiment with the rank of Lieutenant. 
It was now his duty to bear the colors, and he entered upon the 
discharge of that duty with a proud enthusiasm. He was not 
only to have the privilege of mingling in a battle, but to do so in 
a position of honor and of danger. The 16th of May he was in 
a heavy skirmish at Port Walthal Junction. The 19tli and 20th 
his brigade was again engaged charging the Federal linos at How- 
let's Farm. At 11 A. M., the 17th of June, the 46th A^irginia 
(EoGEES' regiment) under command of Major J. C. Hill, of Al- 
bemarle, was detached from the brigade and sent to the left to fill 
a gap in the Confederate line in an open oat-field. The men had 
no protection except a mere rifle pit. " At 2 P. M.," to use the 
language of an officer of the regiment, " that part of our line was 
assaulted by Warren's 3d Army Corps. The assaults were made by 
a division at a time. We, mainly with Blunt's Lynchburg 
battery, having repulsed him each time, the enemy moved to 
our left and broke a South Carolina regiment. This made it 
necessary for us to fall back to a skirt of woods, where we re-formed 
and in turn charged the enemy. In no battle of the war did 
Confederate soldiers behave with greater bravery. Out of 281 
rank and file in the charge, 133 were killed or wounded. In this 
heroic band none was cooler, braver, or more chivalrous than 
KoGEES. When under a storm of missiles perhaps never ex- 
ceeded, I heard him (with his beloved battle-flag clutched to his 



18!;4.] THE UJtIVERSITY MEMOllTAL. 625 

breast with one hand and waving his sword with the other) im- 
ploring his comrades by all that could appeal to the pride or 
honor of Virginia, to lay down their lives if necessary to save 
Petersburg. He did what he exhorted others to do. He fell 
with his colors in his hand." A ball shattered his flag-staff, but 
still he bore it aloft. Three balls passed through his jacket just 
under the arm, but still he remained firm. After being wounded, 
even while prostrate on the ground, he supported tiie colors until 
they were taken from his hand by a color-corporal, who was im- 
mediately killed. His coolness and daring were the theme of 
universal praise. 

A minie ball passed through his collar-bone. His wound, 
though severe, was not considered dangerous. He was taken from 
the field to a hospital in Petersburg, and from there, after a time, 
to the residence of his commander, Colonel Randolph Harrison, 
in Goochland county, Virginia. Exposure to the heat of a mid- 
summer sun, and the weariness and fatigue of travel, produced 
such prostration of his system as to render his recovery impossible. 
His Colonel was with him, having himself been wounded, and all 
the attention that wealth and kindness could supply he received — 
in vain. The 24th of August, 1864, he passed away, murmuring 
with his dying breath, "Father, into thy hands I commit my 
spirit." xVt the time of his death ho was buried at St. Paul's 
Church, Goochland ; but since the war his remains have been re- 
moved to the graveyard of his ancestors, at Hollybrook, the resi- 
dence of his father. His life was brief, pure, honorable. His 
Alma Mater may well cherish his memory for what he was, but 
more for what he promised to be. Although he died while his life 
was only in the bud, it was not meet that he should pass away^ 

"Without the meed of some melodious tear." 

This sketch finds its fittest conclusion in the following letter 
from General Henry A. Wise to Mr. Rogers : — 

•'Richmond, Virginia, July 5th, 1869. 
"3Iy Dear Sir : — ... I first noticed Louis in a shady retreafc 
from the camp at Ciiaffin, in the year 1862, reading his Bilde to 
a comrade in the woods. His rpiiet, earnest manner in his pious 
work struck me. [ had before noticed him passingly, as your 
son, for your sake ; but now that I saw his character, 1 began to 
40 



626 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[June, 



notice him for his sake and mine too. I found that he" had an 
exemplary influence with all the young men of his. company. 
He could keep them orderly and obedient and on duty while his 
officers could not. I soon found him not only moral, but intel- 
lectual ; not merely gifted with animal, but with the highest 
Christian courage. Humble, unpretending, modest in his de- 
meanor, he was too high to do wrong himself, and too firm to be 
tempted or misled by others. These qualities caused me in 1863 
to make him chief clerk of the Adjutant-General's office of ray 
staff. He thus was drawn near and made intimate with me. 
His whole life and conduct were those of duty to God and his 
command in the army. His company did never so well as when 
he was with it. He was the fittest man in it for its Captaincy, 
and repeatedly urged me to send him back to the ranks. For 
months I could not spare him. When I left headquarters of 
camp I took him with me. He was a daily example of goodness 
and usefulness, and I never knew him to blunder, even, much less 
be guilty of a fault. His companionship as a Christian was a 
blessing to me. He never obtruded a homily, yet his soft, meek, 
deprecatory look would often allay a passion or stay a profane 
word. He was as quick as lightning to perceive, yet so consci- 
entious that he never assumed to act without full intelligence of 
what he was to do. I could trust him as well absent as present, 
and he never failed me. 

" At last he could not be witheld longer from his company ; and 
especially after being promoted to the post of honor — color- 
bearer of his regiment with rank of Lieutenant. He fell at 
that post, flag in hand, on the 17th of June, 1864, gloriously, 
while liis regiment was forced back, and his gallant Major Hill 
lost an arm in saving his person and his flag from the enemy. 
He lingered feebly in the hospital until his Colonel took him to 
his house in Goochland, where he was fondly nursed as by a father 
and mother. Alas ! he was too feeble when struck to recover 
from the blow. A brighter, braver, better soul never took flight 
from earth to heaven, from time to eternity. I would write on 
the tablet of his tomb : — 



18C4.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 027 

"Lieutenant Louis Rogers, Jr. 

" His example taught that the best soklier of the Captain of Salvation made 
the best soldier of the Confederate camps. His eternal parole is that of the 
Prince of Peace. 

"Your friend, 

" Henky a. Wise. 



To George S. Rogers, Esq.'' 



THOMAS R. ROANE, 

Private, Company F. "Essex Light Dragoons,"' 9th Virginia Cavalry. 

The tens of thousands who liave furnished the holocaust of the 
relentless civil war which has desolated our once happy country, 
have each and all left a chord to memory dear that vibrates to the 
heart's warm beat; and few may there be who are not enshrined 
in monuments purer than Parian marble^ and more enduring than 
the sculptor's art. There is scarce a fireside where there is not at 
least one seat vacant. From the stately mansions of wealth, and 
from the humble cottage-home, some are gone forever ; and the 
mourners that weep, all cherish their memories of the loved and 
lost. Truly then our noble Alma Mater would not forget tho.se 
of her sons who have died in defence of a noble cause; and sad 
would it be should her historian fail to record a single name that 
has been nurtured at her breast; that as time rolls on, and honors 
crowd thick around her, she may, when asked for her most valued 
jewels, lift her lettered hand from the scroll *of fame, and, like 
the historic mother of the Gracchi, point to the record of her 
sons. 

Thomas Ruffin Roane was born at Windsor, the residence of 
his father, in Essex county, Virginia, July 5th, 1840. His 
father, Dr. Lawrence Roane, is now in the sixty-seventh year of 
his age, and is a worthy representative of a name that has given 
many useful and honored citizens to our beloved old State. His 
mother, whose maiden name was Sarah Jones, was taken from liim 
when he was but a child, leaving him the second of three small 
children to sustain the irreparable loss of her fostering care. But 



628 THE LTNIVERSITY MEMOEJAL, . ^j^,^,,^ 

she was not called away before the impress of her pure and lofty 
character had been stamped upon their tender minds. Through 
both branches of his ancestral tree he is closely allied to a large 
number of the most respectable and influential families of tide- 
water Virginia. 

Of Thomas Ruffin's childhood the writer has had the oppor- 
tunity of knowing very little ; but in early youth he gave evidence 
of a sprightly and vigorous mind, and possessed a fascination of 
mannero not often found in one so young. At school he made 
many and warm personal friends ; for beneath a buoyant and joyous 
exterior there flowed that current of tenderness and affection which 
gives such irresistible charm to the power of intellect. Passing 
through that happy period with but one sorrow — the loss of a 
lovely and beloved sister — to mar the joyousness of youth, he 
entered the University of Virginia in October, 1859, under 
auspices that gave promise of a brilliant future. In all his studies, 
scientific, literary, and classical, although not a laborious student, 
he sustained his previous reputation for scholarship, especially in 
the attractive departments of Philosophy and Literature. He 
was a member of the Jefferson Society ; and while his biographer 
does not know what part he took in the debates of that body, yet 
he can with perfect sincerity affirm that he possessed a remarkable 
command of language, which with his other accomplishments 
supplied every requisite for a debater of the highest order ; and, 
indeed, his contemporaries at Brookland School will remember his 
happy effort as the Final Orator of the literary society of that 
institution, at the close of the session preceding his entry at the 
Univ^ersity. He also contributed several excellent articles to the 
Universiti/ Ilagazine ; among these, "Disjecta Membra" would 
have done credit to any pen. It was ratlier satirical, containing 
happy hits at college habits, names, &c., and gave evidence of 
original and creative genius. It was reproduced in the 3Iagazine 
in 1870 and signed "Censor Morum," reference being, of course, 
made to the fact that it was a republication. 

But in 18G1, while thus preparing himself for the stern duties 
and responsibilities of life, the bugle-note which met its ready 
response in the warm blood of the sunny South was heard in his 
classic retreat, and together with hundreds of congenial spirits, he 
tore himself from this peaceful abode of letters and entered the 
ranks of tempestuous Mars. He was sustained in this course by 



lSfi4.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 629 

the similar decision of a younger brother, and that of an intimate 
friend and relative — both at the University with him. The 
former was desperately wounded at the battle of Chancellorsville, 
and is now industriously employed in the quiet pursuits of a 
farmer's life; the latter one rendered his bright young life on the 
altar of his country at disastrous Gettysburg, and will occupy an 
enviable place on this roll of honor. During the short interval 
between the death of this friend and the termination of his own 
brief career on earth, the tenderness of his character Avas par- 
ticularly conspicuous ; for, though possessing rare and penetrating 
wit, and abounding in cheerfulness and mirth, when in the 
presence of the widowed mother whose gray hairs were multiply- 
in-y under this crushino; blow, there seemed a softness in his voice 

O 7 

and gentleness in his bearing that were particularly touching in 
their sympathy. 

Thomas Ruffin, immediately after his return home, enlisted 
in the " Essex Light Dragoons," afterwards Company F, 9th Vir- 
ginia Cavalry, and remained in that company up to the time of 
his death, June 30th, 1864. To our loved but lost cause he was 
most ardently attached, and never for a moment lost confidence in 
its ultimate success. Brave as he was generous, he was ever 
ready to do his whole duty, and was painfully wounded in the 
hand at Auburn, Fauquier county, on the 13th of October, 1863. 
This wound necessitated a prolonged absence from his command, 
and it was upon his return from this furlough that the sad accident 
occurred which cost his life. Owing to some misunderstanding 
with the pickets below Petersburg, they refused to allow him to 
pass, and in attempting to swim the river he was swept down by 
the rapid current and drowned. And although he did not fall in 
the full tide of battle, 'mid the cannon's roar and the deadly 
clash of arras, yet when the turbid waters of the Appomattox 
closed over his body, a soldier's heart had ceased to beat and a 
noble spirit had returned to the God who gave it life. 

Plis obedience and conspicuous devotion as a son, his sincerity 
and affection as a brother and a friend, are an earnest that he will 
not be forgotten by those he loved. And to the father, the twilight 
of whose life is illumined by the memories of the past, his Alma 
Mater extends her warm and heartfelt sympathy ; and as with him 
she silently bends o'er his grave, she drops a tear to his memory, 
and proudly claims him as one of her sons. 



630 THE UivIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. [juiy, 

JOHN SAUNDERS PALMER, 

Captain, Company K, 10th South Carolina Volunteers. 

John Saunders Palmer, — elder brother of James Jerma 
Palmer, a sketch of whose life and services in his country's cause 
has already been given to the reader — was born August 23d, 1836, 
at the summer residence of his father, in the parish of St. James 
Santee, Charleston District, South Carolina. 

His education began under his fatlier's roof, and was conducted 
by private tutors. In 1853 he was admitted into the South Caro- 
lina Military School ; but after remaining there some eighteen 
months, he applied for and obtained a discharge. In October, 
1854, he became a student at the University of Virginia; but in 
the latter part of the following winter he was compelled by ill 
health to return home. In the autumn of 1855 he went as a vol- 
unteer engineer in the service of the Blue Ridge Railroad Com- 
pany, and assisted the sub-engineers in their duties among the 
mountains of North Carolina and Georgia, for the purpose of ac- 
quiring a practical knowledge of civil engineering. In 1856 he 
took charge of his father's plantation in St. Stephen's Parish, and 
soon became one of the most practical and successful planters of 
that section. 

When the ordinance of secession was passed by his native 
State, he was among the first to respond to Iier call for soldiers. 
By his energy and zeal he was prominently instrumental in raising 
a company of infantry during the summer of 1861. At its organ- 
ization, Julius T. Porcher was elected to the Captaincy and him- 
self to the office of 1st Lieutenant. On the 15th of September 
the comp;my was received into the service of the State as Company 
K, 10th South Carolina Infantry, and ordered immediately to 
garrison the earthworks on Bull's Island, which commanded an 
important inlet between Georgetown and Charleston. At the fall 
of Port Royal the post was abandoned, and the company ordered 
to join the regiment at the camp of instruction near Georgetown. 
Soon after, however, it was transferred to South Island. 

At the reorganization of the army Lieutenant Palmer was 
re-elected 1st Lieutenant, and very soon afterwards rose by promo- 
tion to the command of his company. 

About this time, in consequence of several reverses which the 



ia;4.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 631 



Confederate cause had suffered iu the West, it was thought ueces- 
sary to ahandon the defence of the seacoast of South Carolina, 
except Charleston, and send the troops to other points. Accord- 
ingly, the 10th South Carolina was sent to General Beauregard, 
and thenceforward shared the fortunes of the Army of Tennessee. 
After the fall of Corinth it participated in the arduous campaign 
in Tennessee and Kentucky, during which Captain Palmer ex- 
hibited the higliest qualities of a soldier, patiently enduring under 
the forced marches and not murmuring at the scanty subsistence, 
but, by his example, encouraging his men to bear all with cheer- 
fulness. On the retreat from Kentucky, continued without any 
pause for twelve days, his brigade was for the greater part of the 
time the rear-guard of the army, and constantly engaged in skir- 
mishing with the enemy. 

At Murfreesboro', December 31st, 1862, Captain Palmer Avas 
for the first time in a pitched battle ; and as he was marked by his 
endurance of the trials and fatigues of the former campaign, so his 
courage was conspicuous on the field. As a testimony to his gal- 
lantry, his name was inscribed on one of the four Parrott guns 
which were taken by the 10th and 19th South Carolina regiments, 
and afterwards presented by General Bragg to the department of 
South Carolina, in compliment to the bravery of those regiments. 
At this battle Captain Palmer Avas wounded in the leg, and, in 
consequence, went home soon after on furlough, for the first time 
since he entered the army. 

During this visit he was married to Miss Alice, daughter of 
Colonel P. C. Gaillard, of Charleston. As soon, however, as his 
wound permitted, he returned to his regiment, which he found at 
Shelbyville, Tennessee. 

On the 19th and 20th of September, 1863, the battle of Chicka- 
mauga was fought, and here again he behaved with great personal 
bravery. His regiment suffered severely, but he escaped unhurt. 
After the battle of Missionary Ridge, November 24th, the army 
went into winter-quarters at Dalton, and Captain Pal]\ier made 
a second and last visit to his family. 

From Dalton to Atlanta General Johnston disputed every step 
of the way. The 10th South Carolina was repeatedly engaged, 
and as often as it fought this young Carolinian discovered the 
courage of the true soldier. While besieged at Atlanta, his com- 
mand took a portion of the enemy's entrenchments by a very gal- 



632 THE UNIVERSITY -MmiORIAL. 



[July, 



lant action on the 24th of July, 1864. After repulsing and 
driving back the enemy's lines, they suddenly found themselves 
confronted by a line of entrenchments, which they were ordered 
to charge. 

While leading his company in this attack, he was killed in- 
stantly by a ball which passed through his head. At that moment 
the order was given to fall back, and, to the regret of his men, the 
body was left on the field. There were some who still hoped that 
their gallant Captain had been only wounded, and diligent inquiry 
was made to ascertain whether such an officer had been carried 
into the enemy's lines ; but the inquiry proved fruitless. About 
a month after, as soon as the Federals removed to another position. 
Sergeant AVilliam Owens, accompanied by several others of the 
command, went out to the battle-ground, and, near the spot where 
he fell, discovered the grave in Avhich the enemy had decently 
buried him. In exhuming the body for interment in the Atlanta 
Cemetery, it was found that none of his clothes had been removed, 
and the uniform was at once identified. Some portion of the latter 
was cut off and sent to his friends at home. The father, who at 
once recognized the cloth woven under his own roof, and the young 
wife, whose handiwork it was — a testimonial of affection, aent to 
her husband just before the fatal day — felt that the body was all 
that remained of him on earth. 

His remains were afterwards removed to Magnolia Cemetery, 
near Charleston, South Carolina. 



BEVERLY BAKER HUNTER, M. D., 

Captain, Company K, 41st Virginia Infantry. 

Beverly Baker Hunter Avas at the time of his death' in his 
twenty-sixth year. He was born in Kemper county, Mississippi, 
March 15, 1839, and killed at Petersburg, Virginia, June 30th, 
1864. His father, Benjamin Blake Baker Hunter, was a native 
of the latter State; his mother, Mrs. Caroline Hunter, of the 
former. His paternal relatives, most of whom were Virginians, 
were of the highest respectability, being descended from an old 
English family, whose noble qualities they inherited. 



1864.] THE UlSIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 633 

"When Baker was a mere child, his father removed to Marshall, 
Harrison county, Texas ; but when his son reached the age of 
twelve, Mr. Hunter, wishing to secure for him better educational 
facilities than that State then afforded, brought him to Virginia, 
and placed him in the care of his grandfather. Dr. Edward R. 
Hunter. Here he was first sent to the school at South-Quay Church, 
in Nansemond county, where he soon won for himself considerable 
reputation as a diligent and apt pupil. Having passed through 
the restricted course of this school, he was transferred, in 1853, to 
the academy at Riddicksville, North Carolina, then under the 
charge of Mr. Martin Kellogg. At the academy his honorable 
deportment secured for him the confidence and esteem of teachers 
and students, while by diligent application to his studies he 
merited and received distinction in his classes. When he left 
the school, after completing the regular curriculum of study, he 
was, for one of his years, no mean proficient in the classics. 

He now determined to do something for himself. From his 
grandfather, to whose kindness he was indebted for the opportuni- 
ties thus for enjoyed, and for which he was profoundly grateful, he 
positively declined to receive any additional aid. In furtherance 
of this purpose, he established himself at Carrsville, Isle of Wight 
county, as the teacher of a neighborhood school. While supporting 
himself by this means, he took up the study of Medicine, and 
prosecuted it industriously under the direction of Dr. TiiomasH. 
Barnes — a popular practitioner whose old-fashioned hospitality one 
might go out of his way to make mention of 

In the fall of 1858, Avitli the hard earnings of the school-room, 
he shifted the scene to the University of Virginia, and entered 
the medical class. Here he remained two sessions, at the end of 
Avhich time he received, as an evidence of his professional attain- 
ments, a diploma with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. To 
merit this degree the student must prove by his examination, both 
written and oral, that he has made satisfactory attainments in 
Anatomy, Surgery, Human and Comparative Physiology, Prin- 
ciples and Practice of Medicine, Obstetrics, Materia Medica, 
Chemistry, Pharmacy, and Medical Jurisprudence. And to show 
how high a degree of proficiency is required, it may be stated that 
of those who enter the School of Medicine in the University, only 
about ten per centum bear off its honors. 

After a brief season of recreation, Dr. Hunter located at 



634 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. j^^.y, 

Franklin Depot, Southampton county, Virginia, where he at once 
secured an extensive and lucrative practice. But, as soon as the 
State of his adoption severed herself from the United States Gov- 
ernment, he ceased to worship iEsculapius and paid his devotion 
to gloomy Mars. In April, 1861, he enlisted as a private in the 
"South Quay Guards," and served in this capacity until merit won 
him the commission which he bore with so much credit to himself 
and satisfaction to his command. 

Upon a more thorough organization of the troops, this company 
Avas assigned to the 41st Virginia Infantry, under Brigadier-Gen- 
eral Mahone. During the first year of the war, the 41st being 
stationed at Sewell's Point, near Norfolk, Dr. Hunter was 
unable to display the qualities which afterwards recommended 
him for promotion; but his knowledge of therapeutics and his 
acquaintance with the malarial diseases of that climate, soon at- 
tracted the attention of the Surgeon, and he was temporarily 
assigned to the medical department. In April, 1862, he was 
elected to a Lieutenancy, from which position he was soon promoted 
to the command of the company. 

After the evacuation of Norfolk, Mahone's brigade was brought 
into active service, and the Captain of Company K, 41st Virginia, 
soon won the title of " Brave Baker Huxter." He was severely 
wounded in the knee at Seven Pines, but, under careful treatment, 
recovered and returned to his command in time to participate in 
the battles of Frazier's Farm and Malvern Hill. In about two 
weeks after the latter fight, the Southern army was put in motion 
to meet General Pope's advance towards the Rupidan ; and we 
find Captain Hunter on the march to the historic fields of 1861. 
At the second battle of Manassas he was again wounded, this time 
in the thigh, and retired from the field ; but at Chaneellorsville he 
was once more at the head of his company. Throu-gh this baptism 
of fire and hail he passed unhurt, as also through the entire Get- 
tysburg campaign. 

During the period of quiet that succeeded the return of the 
army from Maryland, Captain Hunter made a profession of 
Christianity, and henceforward his life was marked by its consist- 
ency with his profession. 

The May of the following year brought him again to Spotsyl- 
vania, the dense jungles of the Wilderness, the thickets about the 
Court House ; and thence with the Army of Northern Virginia 



18(i4. 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 635 



he fought and manoeuvred, until, on the 16th of June, that Army 
faced Grant at Petersburg. During tliis trying period, as indeed 
through the whole period of his military life, he Avas one of the 
most efficient officers in the field. Ignoring the privileges which 
his commission entitled him to, he shared the fare and the fortunes 
of the private soldier ; uncomplaining under sore privations, he 
sought the comfort of his men when in camp, encouraged them on 
the march, and cheered them to the fight. In the trenches around 
the invested city the same good qualities were conspicuous. 

On the 30th of July the famous mine of Burnside was exploded. 
General Mahone was ordered to bring forward his division and 
repel the assault of the enemy through the crater. The com- 
mand had been successfully executed and the Federals driven back 
to iheir own works, when Baker Hunter was killed while 
unnecessarily exposing himself to watch the effects of our mortar 
shells. 

Much has been said of individual merit during the progress of 
this work; but few have better deserved to be spoken of in terms 
of commendation than he whose life has just been briefly traced. 
Brave and faithful as a soldier, courteous and true to his friends, 
cultivated in mind and in heart, he Mas an ornament to the State 
that gave him birth as well as to that of his adoption — Virginia 
— on whose soil he now rests. 



THOMAS R. JONES, 

Captain and Staff Officer, Army of the Mississippi. 

Not a few of our Alumni Avill gratefully recall the lavish hos- 
pitality which used to be dispensed at "Social Hall," Charlottes- 
ville, the residence of Colonel John R. Jones ; and none of these 
will fail to remember the manly form, handsome features, and 
courteous manners of his son, the universally popular " Tom 
Jones." 

Born on the 8th of January, 1825, he lived with his father until 
1858, spending the session of 1842-43 at the University, and de- 
veloped in the mercantile profession business talents of the first 
order. Indeed, few business men have been more popular. In 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [August, 

the winter of 1858-59, he was assistant to the lamented St. 
George Tucker as clerk of the Virginia House of Delegates, and 
gave the highest satisfaction in this position. He went to New 
York in 1859, and was engaged in business there when the opening 
of the war summoned him to his native State. He promptly en- 
listed as a private in the Charlottesville Artillery, raised and 
commanded by Captain William H. Suuthall, and shared all the 
hardships and dangers of General Magruder's campaign in the 
Peninsula. He was in the Seven Days' battles around Richmond, 
and proved himself a good soldier. Soon after these battles he 
was for a time detailed for service in the Pay Department in 
Richmond. In the winter of 1862 he was given a staff appoint- 
ment, with rank of Captain, and ordered to Louisiana, where he 
served with distinction at Port Hudson and other points. 

While on sick leave he was taken with a congestive chill and 
died at Selma, Alabama, August 15th, 1864. His brother (Gen- 
eral John M. Jones) had fallen at the Wilderness t'hree months 
before, and he had lost besides three nephews and several cousins. 

Frank, brave, generous to a fault, as universally popular as he 
was widely known, many will read with mournful interest this 
brief tribute, and recognize the propriety of giving the name of 
Captain Thomas R. Jones a fitting place on the roll of our 
" Fallen Alumni." 



W. JAMES KINCHELOE, B. L., 

1st Lieutenant, Company C, 49th Virginia Infantry. 

William James Kincheloe, second son of Brandt Kinche- 
loe and Mary Rawlings, his wife, was born the 15th of March, 
1836, near Rectortown, in Fauquier county, Virginia. His pa- 
ternal ancestors, who were English, came to Virginia at an 
.early date, and, settling in Prince William county, continued to 
reside there until the Revolution. The great-grandfather of young 
Kincheloe, being a Royalist, and not wishing his sons to be 
drafted to fight against the Crown, removed in consequence 
to Fauquier county, which was then a wilderness, and settled 
and remained there until after the close of the war. He then 



1864] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 6S7 



divider! his large landed property among his children and re- 
moved to Tennessee, with the injnnction that they should sell 
and follow him. A single son, James, remained in Fauquier, 
and married Elizabeth Hardwick. The fourth son of tliis mar- 
riage was Brandt Kincheloe, our soldier's father. 

Mary Rawlings was the fourth daughter of Aaron Rawlings, a 
native of Annapolis, Maryland, who enlisted at the age of sixteen 
in defence of his country's liberties, and continued to serve until 
the close of the Revolutionary War. He married Elizabeth 
Douglas, and in 1800 removed to Loudoun county, Virginia. 
After his death Mrs. Rawlings removed to Fauquier, where her 
daughter Mary was married to Mr. Kincheloe. 

At the age of three years James Kincheloe was placed in the 
school-room of his father's private tutor, though of course without 
much restriction.. It was unfortunate for the little fellow : he was 
too young, and at once took a dislike to his primer, from which he 
did not hesitate to tear the leaves, especially that on which his 
lesson was. His father finally cut the alphabet on a board, and 
this, despite his efforts to deface it, lasted until he had mastered 
his letters. But he showed no partiality for study until he reached 
the age of thirteen or fourteen, preferring outdoor sports, hunt- 
ing, fishing — indeed, anything rather than the dreaded book. 

At seven he was taught vocal music, which he learned rapidly. 
His father, seeing his taste for music and being himself fond of it, 
purchased him a violin and book of instruction. He soon became 
master of both, and at the age of fifteen attempted the composition 
of music. He was taught dancing also, and seemed not less fond 
of it than of music. 

At about the age of thirteen his aversion for books began to 
wear away ; and he turned from the sports wliich until now had 
enffae-ed him, and devoted himself with assiduity to his studies, 
making a corresponding progress in the fundamentals of an 
education. In 1853 he was sent to the "Alexandria Boarding 
School," under the direction of Mr. Benjamin Hallowell. A 
report from that gentleman for tlie session 1853-54, now before 
the writer, placed him in the first class and accredited him with 
special proficiency in Mathematics. At the end of the second session 
he was considered by Mr. Hallowell to be prepared to enter the 
University with advantage. Still retaining his fondness for music, 
he was able in Alexandria to receive instruction from a profes- 
sional teacher, and became himself a proficient in the science. 



638 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL, [AuguBt, 

In the summer of 1855 he returned to Fauquier, and remained 
on his father's farm for nearly two years, assisting in the plantation 
work in busy seasons, and continuing his studies at other times. 
For a few months in 1856 he was engaged as an assistant instruc- 
tor in Mathematics in the Upperville Military Academy. 

In 1857 he entered the University of Virginia, taking the 
schools of Moral Philosophy and Mathematics, and the junior 
classes of Law. At the end of the session he received distinctions 
in the Law classes and diplomas in Mathematics and Moral Philo- 
sophy. The next year he took the fuller course of the Law school, 
and graduated with the title of Bachelor of Law, He then re- 
turned to Fauquier and remained with his father until April, I860,' 
at which time he settled at Warrenton, and became a candidate 
for the practice of his profession. 

Attentive to business and upright in his dealings, he bid fair to 
honor that profession ; but little opportunity was given for forensic 
discussion, for the distant mutterings of the coming storm were 
already audible, and the red glare of war was upon the political 
sky. The minds of people were turning away from private litiga- 
tion to the great contest impending between the two sections of the 
country, and in their public gatherings their leading men were 
frequently called out to address them. Several of Kincheloe's 
speeches called forth by such occasions, are now before the* writer, 
but there is not space to insert them. One single extract, from an 
address before the people of Warrenton, will show the spirit of the 
man who constantly urged his countrymen to meet the issue with 
the sword, and thus stay the tide of aggression. : — " . . But 
our opponents tell us to wait for an overt act; then they are 
readv for revolution. We say overt acts upon overt acts have 
been committed, until the very liberty Avhich our Government was 
intended to guarantee has been turned into slavery. 

"The history of our country shows that the South has been 
living in a state of mere forbearance, subjecting herself to evils in 
order to preserve the glorious fabric of the Union. But when we 
have been trodden under-foot by fanaticism until the most igno- 
minious and crouching. slave is ready to cry out against the domi- 
nation of the ruling power, it is time to begin to think of the few 
rights that have been left us." 

True to the principles enunciated in his public addresses, KiN- 
CHELOE entered at once into the military service of his country. 



1804.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 639 

At the organization of the "Fauquier Guards" he was elected 
Orderly Sergeant. On the 4th of July the ladies of Warrenton 
presented the company with a handsome flag, and Sergeant Kin- 
CHELOE was chosen to make the speech accepting it on behalf of 
his company. One sentence of this address will probably be re- 
membered by his surviving comrades. Said he to the ladies : — 
''When we return to tell the story of victory, grant us this last 
boon : Decorate the graves of our slain with the floioers of spring, 
and their monuments with the mottoes of liberty.''^ 

A few days after the delivery of this address, which was loudly 
applauded, the company having received arms and equipments, 
was ordered to Manassas. Here it was made Company C of the 
49th Virginia Infantry, Colonel (Governor) AVilliam Smith. 
There is no evidence before the writer that Kincheloe was en- 
gaged at the first battle of Manassas, thoiigh it is known that his 
command was. But a long enough list follows after this: — Wil- 
liamsburg, Seven Pines, Frazier's Farm, INIaivern Hill, Second 
Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chaucellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilder- 
ness, Spotsylvania Court House, Winchester. 

At Williamsburg his younger brother Wickliffe was wounded, 
taken prisoner, and carried to Fortress Monroe ; and there he re- 
mained, snifering and growing weaker from his wound. On the 
15th of September following he wrote to James (who was now 
Adjutant of his regiment) stating his condition. The letter was 
accomi)anied by one from Dr. McCay, Surgeon in charge, stating 
that " \.\\e presence of some of his friends was actually necessary 
for the safety of his life." Communication between Richmond 
and F<)rtr( ss Monroe was at this time very slow, and tiic letters 
reached tiieir destination only after some weeks. xVdjutant Kix- 
CHELOE at once obtained a furlough and set 5fF; but every eflbrt 
failed, for passports were prohibited by general orders, and the 
Federal Gtjvernment required the oath of all who visited the fort. 
It was j)r(jbal)ly as well, for the poor boy had died on the'22d of 
Septeuilnr, before his brother could have reached him, even with 
every facility at his command. Tiie family had no news of this 
sad event until about the end of January, 18G3, when James 
wrote to !iis father: — "My heart," said he "is too sad to ex[)ress 
my fcL'iiiijjS. Since yesterday, when I received the mournful in- 
telligenc , 'Many tears have dropped from my eyes, and I have 
felt that i ')idd weep myself away for the sake of him 



640 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [August, 

For my dear mother's sake, break this sad news softly upon her 
ears. For my sisters' sake, tell them of it mildly." 

After the battle of Seven Pines he returned to his company as 
2d Lieutenant, and held thi^ until promoted at Gettysburg, in 
consequence of the death of 1st Lieutenant Mitchell. 

On the second day (at Groveton, August 29th) of the second 
battle of Manassas, he was wounded in the thigh, and consequently 
was not with the army when it went into Maryland. He re- 
covered, however, and returned to his command in time to take 
part in the battle at Fredericksburg, December 13th, 18r»2. From 
" Camp near Guinea's Station," he wrote in the following Jan- 
uary to his sister, letters from which extracts will show his spirit, 
under the pressure of hard service, and the knowledge that his 
family was suffering from the outrages of the enemy. He had 
anticipated both ; for on the 21st of March, 1862, when the army 
had fallen back from Manassas to the Rapidan, he wrote to his 
father: — "I never could have deserted my home save in so sacred 
a cause; but such is the soldier's fate, sad as it may be. I suppose 
the enemy are all around you by this time, and will no doubt 
damage and destroy much of your property." The enemy had 
by this time had opportunity to plunder private property, and had 
done their work faithfully. "I am sorry," says one of his letters 
in January, 1863, "to hear father lost so much by the Yankees. 
Tell him not to mind it, but brave it like an Indian warrior, who 
never lets his countenance change, no matter what misfortune befalls 
him. But unlike him, pray for the happy riddance of so vile an 
enemy." 

Another letter without date says : — " My greatest concern, how- 
ever, about you all, is the means of subsistence. I know not 
what the people in the county do for something to cat; as from my 
personal -observation when there last, and from hearsay, thoy have 
no possible support. What will be the extent of suffering this 
winter? I hope God will provide for you all. If you have any 
wool I would advise you to have weaving done. My hope is that 
you all may be enabled to sustain yourselves comfortably, and as 
ftir as the nature of things will admit, happily. . . Let me tell 
you one thing which people not used to our army do not believe. 
It is that the soldier roith all his ills, with all his sufferings and 
dangers, is the most cheerful being in the country. At home all is 
long-faced despondency, dreary imaginations and visions of disas- 



]S';4.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 641 



ters and misfortunes. In tlie iirmy everything is hope, cheerful- 
ness and liigh expectation. And I may unhesitatingly say the 
best cure for a hypociiondriac is, to visit the army." 

In nearly all his letters he made mention of a younger brother, 
whose education, in danger of neglect under the stress of war, he 
was deeply solicitous about. In one of them he used the follow- 
ing language: — "I laid an application before the board at Lex- 
ington for the admission of Robert as a State cadet. I think there 
is but little chance for him to get the appointment, although I had 
him recommended by influence. Tell Bob for me not to spend an 
idle night. Study ! study ! study ! and prepare himself for man- 
hood. Teach him Algebra, Geometry, Chemistry — the sciences 
deep and solid. He will never be a man nnless. . . . Tell him 
to do this; and like many who never saw anything but obscurity, in 
a hovel, over a few coals of fire and a dingy lamp, a shining 
light will break forth before him, and some day when occasion 
calls, he will feel himself great because he has done it all himself." 

Chancellorsville followed in May, and then the invasion of 
Pennsylvania, and the battle of Gettysburg. Lieutenant Kixche- 
LOE described these great actions with graphic power ; but there is not 
room for his letters. Concerning the Pennsylvanians he wrote in 
his diary now before me, "The citizens are terribly frightened 
everywhere we go, and all they ask is to spare their lives. All 
else is at our will. Most all the inhabitants we see say they are 
for 2jcace, and belong to the copperhead class of democrats." At the 
Wilderness his brigade (Pegram's) was engaged each day. At 
Spotsylvania Court House he was painfully wounded near the 
close of the fight on the 12th of May, by a piece of shell which 
struck him on the shoulder. He was sent to Richmond, and did 
not rejoin the army again until the middle of "July. His brigade 
then belonged to the command of General Early, and was engaged 
in the Valley. 

Some six weeks after — weeks of active and toilsome duty, during 
which the Confederates were marching and countermarching, con- 
stantly skirmishing and sometimes hard pressed by the enemy — 
Lieutenant Kinciieloe fell mortally wounded, and died without 
a word. The circumstances were these: — On the mornino- of 
the 29th of August, 1864, the Federal cavalry, two divisions, 
attacked and defeated the Confederate cavalry near Smithfield, in 
Jeflferson county. The infantry was called out, and the skirmishers 
41 



642 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL, 



[September, 



thrown foward drove the enemy back. Pegrani's brigade was 
ordered to halt and presently to face about. As Kincheloe 
gave the command "Right about, Company C ! " he was seen to fall, 
and upon examination was found to be shot in the back of the 
head, the ball penetrating the brain. The report of the gun was 
not heard. He was buried in the cemetery at Smithfield, whose 
ladies, we will hope, "decorate his grave with the flowers of 
spring." 

To the simple statement of a life like this nothing can be added 
to increase its praise. To the duties of a company officer had 
been added, since October 1863, those of Judge-Advocate for 
Early's division. He was thus brought in closer relation with his 
brigade-commander, whose letter fitly closes this article : — 

" Near Brucetowx, Virgixia, \ 
September 4ith, 1864. J 

" My Dear Sir .— 

" Although I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, I 
avail myself of Mr. Anderson's kindness to offer you my most 
sincere sympathy in the loss of your gallant and gifted son. I 
was thrown with him more intimately than with most of the young 
officers in my command, and thus had an opportunity of appreciat- 
ing his many noble and attractive qualities — qualities which must 
render his loss to you, as well as to his regiment, an irreparable 
one. With the prayer that God may soften this affliction to his 
mother and to yourself, I am, 

" In haste, and very truly yours, 

" John Pegram. 
" 3Ir. Brandt Kincheloe, 

" Fauquier county, Virginia." 



WILSON S. NEWMAN, 

1st Lieutenant, commanding Company A, 13th Virginia Infantry- 

Wilson Scott Newman, son of James and Mary Scott New- 
man, was born at " Hilton," Orange county, Virginia, on the 7th 
of May, 1831. 



18G4.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 643 

From infancy to early boyhood lie was extremely delicate, and 
not till he was of an age to indulge in rustic sports was there any 
promise of that mental and bodily vigor which subsequently 
characterized him. 

He was prepared at home to enter the Academy of Pike Powers, 
Esq., in Staunton, and was there prepared for the University of 
Virginia, which he entered in October, 1850. He was at the 
University during the sessions of '50-'51, '51-'52, '54-'55, and 
'55-56. 

During the intervening sessions he taught a school for boys 
at the residence of J. Ravenscroft Jones, Esq., Brunswick 
county, Virginia, and gave the highest satisfaction to his patrons. 

On his return to the University he took law, and certain other 
studies which seemed most directly tributary to his chosen profes- 
sion. He graduated in several schools, and took distinctions in 
others. He was Final Orator of the Washington Society in 1855, 
and made a most excellent address with which his Society was 
highly gratified. He completed his legal studies at the Law 
School of Judge John W. Brokenbrough, in Lexington. While 
here he was a member of the celebrated Franklin Society, and 
was considered one of its ablest debaters. 

In December, 1858, he married in Lexington Miss M. L. 
White, daughter of the late Mathew White, and sister of Mrs. 
General Frank Paxton. The married life of few men has been 
happier, and the society of his wife and two beautiful and inter- 
esting children seemed to fill his cup of worldly joy. 

Locating himself at the county-seat of his native county, he was 
beginning to get a fine practice; the road to political prelerment, 
which he coveted, seemed opening before him, and large " success 
in life" within his grasp. 

But on the 17th day of April, 1861 — a day memorable in the 
annals of the country as the one on which Virginia passed her 
ordinance of secession and hoisted the flag of Southern independ- 
ence — the whole current of his life was changed. Learning 
about an hour before that the " Montpelier Guards," to which his 
three younger brothers belonged, were ordered by telegram from 
Governor Letcher to be ready to take a train of cars at sundown 
that evening, he promptly enlisted as private in the company, left 
his business and domestic affairs to be taken care of as best they 
might, and hastened to unite his fortunes with that noble baud of 



644 THE UKIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[September, 



Virginia youths who at the first tap of the drum rushed to the 
capture of Harper's Ferry and the defence of our border. 

Tliis company, soon after its arrival at Harper's Ferry, was at- 
tached to tlie 13th Virginia Infantry, of which A. P. Hill (after- 
wards Lieutenant-General) was Colonel, James A. Walker (after- 
wards Major-General) was Lieutenant-Colonel, and J. E. B. Terrill 
(afterwards Brigadier-General) was Major. Never did nobler 
officers command nobler men, or lead them to a more brilliant 
career. It was the proud privilege of the present writer to be a 
member of that famous regiment, and to mingle freely with the men 
who composed it, amid every circumstance of hardship, privation, 
and danger, to march with them along the weary road, bivouac 
with them in the pelting storm, minister to them in the loathsome 
hospital, and share with them dangers of the battle-field ; he there- 
fore speaks what he knows when he affirms that the war did not 
produce a more splendid regiment than the 13th Virginia Infantry. 
General Ewell said of it :- — ■" It is the only regiment I know that 
never fails." General J. E. B. Stuart, who frequently had it on out- 
post duty and under whom it fought at Sharpsburg, characterized 
it as "the regiment that ahvays does exactly what I tell them." 
General Early was accustomed to say of it : — " They can do more 
hard fighting and be in better plight afterwards than any men I 
ever saw;" and General R.E.Lee not long since remarked to 
the writer: — " It was a splendid regiment; one of the very best in 
the service." We can pay AVilson Newman no higher compli- 
ment than to say that he M'as universally regarded one of the best 
soldiers in the regiment. 

We have not space to enter into the details of his military 
career; that would be to write the history of his regiment, and 
that would be to give the history of the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia. Suffice it to say that he participated in all the movements 
by which General Johnston eluded Patterson and marched to the 
relief of Beauregard at Manassas, and went with Ewell to join 
Jackson in the spring of '62, and shared all the hardships and 
glories of that brilliant campaign which drove Banks beyond the 
Potomac and crushed Fremont and Shields at Cross Keys and 
Port Republic. Confined to his bed by sickness, he did not par- 
ticipate in the Seven Days' Battles around Richmond, but joined 
his regiment in time to share with them the honor of saving the 
day at Cedar Run Mountain, and go with them to Second Ma- 



1SC4.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 645 



nassas, where he was severely wounded. On his return to his 
command, just before it left the Valley for the first battle of Fred- 
ericksburg, he was at once made A. A. G. of the brigade by his 
old Colonel (Walker), whose keen eye had seen in Lieutenant 
Newman the highest qualities of the soldier. He discharged the 
duties of this position to the entire satisfaction of both superiors 
and subordinates, participated in the first and second battles of 
Fredericksburg, and returned to the command of his company just 
before the Gettysburg campaign. He was constantly at his post 
during the whole of this year, and on the oj^ening of the bloody 
campaign of '64 he was an active participant in the almost daily 
battles from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, He went with 
General Early to drive Hunter .from Lynchburg, marching the 
whole length of the Valley of Virginia, defeating General Lew. 
Wallace at Monocacy Junction, and peeping in at the gates of the 
Federal Capital. He was in all of Early's subsequent movements, 
and was one of that heroic band of fifteen hundred, composing the 
division of the gallant Pegram, who, on the ill-fated 19th of Sep- 
tember, at Winchester, kept back during nearly all the morning the 
whole of Sheridan's splendidly-appointed army, Alas ! he was 
fighting his last battle. Just as the small division of Pegram had 
been reinforced by R-odes (who was there to yield up his noble life) 
and Gordon, and Early was sternly advancing his whole line and 
driving the enemy before him, Wilson Newman, with the shout 
of victory on his lips, fell mortally wounded. Pie was conveyed 
to Winchester, recognized by some of the noble women of that 
noble town, and most tenderly nursed ; but he remained entirely 
unconscious, and knew not that Early's victory had been turned 
into defeat by Sheridan's splendid cavalry, and that he was dying 
in the enemy's lines. He lingered only a few days, and died, one 
of the noblest sacrifices which even Virginia laid on the altar of 
independence. 

We cannot better portray the character of this young man than 
by giving the following letter from General James A. Walker, of 
Newborn, Pulaski county, Virginia: — 

" My acquaintance with Lieutenant Wilson S. Newman com- 
menced at Winchester in July, 18G1, just before General John- 
ston's army began its march across the mountain to join General 
Beauregard at IManassas. Pie was then a Sergeant in Company A, 
13tli Virginia Infantry, Colonel A. P. Hill commanding, in 



646 THFJ UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[September, 



the volunteer service, men of education and high social i)Osi- 
tion often filled the ranks, and social intercourse between officers 
and privates was in many cases free and untrammelled. Especially 
was this true of the 13th Virginia Infantry at the beginning of 
the war, when four-fifths of its rank and file was composed of 
young men of the best families, many of them graduates of Colleges 
and Universities. Lieutenant JSTewman was a frequent and always 
a welcome visitor at regimental headquarters ; and his fine social 
qualities, his ready humor, and gocxl sense, joined to his dignified 
and gentlemanly deportment, made him a favorite Avith all the 
officers and men of the regiment. From the Colonel command- 
ing to the humblest private in the regiment, he was known and re- 
spected by all as a high-toned gentleman, a brave soldier, and a 
kind and genial companion. The writer of this had the pleasure 
of knowing him intimately during the eventful years of 1861-62, 
and up to the battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, during a portion 
of which time he served on his staff as acting aide-de-camp, and no 
braver or truer soldier was to be found in the Southern army. He 
was always at his post, doing his whole duty without seeking ap- 
plause or fame ; content to occupy any position assigned him, with- 
out other reward than the approval of his own conscience. 

" As a soldier his distinguishing trait was quiet, cool courage, 
which remained unmoved and unshaken amid the most terrific 
storms of shot and shell, and an unselfish patriotism which never 
looked beyond his country's cause to his own promotion or ad- 
vancement. His own performances were never the subjects of his 
conversation ; and while he was generous in bestowing praise upon 
others, he never mentioned himself. 

" Though before unused to hardships and privations, he bore the 
fatigues and suiFerings of a soldier's life with fortitude, and even 
cheerfulness. In Jackson's brilliant campaign in the spring of 1862, 
when he had driven Banks across the Potomac and was retreating 
up the Valley pursued by three armies, many of his soldiers were 
entirely barefooted, and among others Lieutenant Newman, who 
marched for several days over the broken gravel of a macadamized 
road, with his feet worn out, bleeding, and swollen to twice their 
natural size. Among the many noble spirits who fought for South- 
ern rights and independence there was none braver or nobler than 
Lieutenant Wilson S. Newman ; and when he fell on the bloody 
and ill-fated field of Winchester, one of the best and truest of 



^3(;4] THE UKIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 647 

Virginia's sons offered his life a willing sacrifice on the altar of 
his comitrj, beloved and regretted by all who knew him. Had 
he survived the war he would doubtless have attained a high 
position in his profession and in public esteem, for he was endowed 
with a mind of uncommon vigor, well cultivated, and might with- 
out difficulty have attained any position to which he aspired; 
but the decree of an all- wise Providence struck him down in the 
darkest hour of our struggle, and he sleeps with hundreds of 
gallant comrades ' whose silent tents are spread on fame's eternal 
camping-ground.' The dearest and tenderest ties which bound 
him to this earth have been severed, but it must be a source of 
consolation to his friends to dwell upon his many manly virtues, 
and to reflect that he died 'on the field of glory ' ; and that his 
memory is cherished and loved, not only by his family and 
kindred, but by all who knew him. Especially is his name dear 
to his old comrades of the 13th Virginia Regiment, who will ever 
mention and cherish it with tender affection." 

The above fitting tribute from the splendid soldier who used to 
lead so heroically the " Old 13th," the " 4th Virginia Brigade," 
and the " Stonewall Brigade," and who led Early's old division 
to Appomattox Court House, leaves the writer of this sketch but 
little to add. And yet he would do violence to his feelings if he 
did not say that an intimate association with Wilson Newman 
at college, and in the army, enables him to endorse, without 
reserve every word of commendation in General Walker's tribute. 
A purer patriot, braver soldier, truer friend never lived. 

The stranger who visits the beautiful cemetery at "Lexington, 
in the Valley of Virginia," will of course be most attracted to the 
graves of Stonewall Jackson, General Frank Paxton, and other 
men of rank and mark who sleep in its silent shades. But the 
survivors of the ever glorious "" Old 13th " — the Alumni of the 
University of Virginia — and the wide circle of those who knew 
and loved him, will not fail to linger around the tomb and drop 
a tear on the grave of our noble brother, Wilson Scott New- 
man. 



648 THE UNIVERSITY MEMUEIAL. [SeptemlDer, 

JOHN LEWIS, 

Adjutant, 36th Virgiuia Infantry. 

John Lewis was born December 31st, 1841. He was the son 
and youngest child of James A. and Prudentia Lewis, of Charles- 
town, Virginia. His father died just before the war began, and 
his mother survived the surrender of the Southern forces only a 
year. 

In the fall of 1860 he entered the University as a student of 
Medicine; but in the following May he returned home Avith the 
intention of joining the "Kanawha Rifles," a company recently 
mustered into the Provisional Army of Virginia, and of which 
some of his nearest relatives were members. His elder brother, 
who was also his guardian, endeavored to persuade him not to 
enlist as a common soldier, but to prosecute his studies to gradua- 
tion, and then, if the war lasted so long, enter the army in the 
medical department. John gave finally an unwilling promise to 
pursue this course, and remained some weeks in Charlestown, as he 
said, "trying to study"; but about the 20th of June, feeling that 
he " couldn't stand it any longer," he made his appearance at the 
camp of " The Rifles," then at Valcoulon, dressed in the uniform 
of the company, and had his name enrolled. 

It is well known to his family that John Lewis entered the 
service with the determination to fight it through as a private sol- 
dieVy saying that he would rather distinguish himself for personal 
prowess than to have the mere insignia and trappings of command ; 
and it was not without difficulty that his mother prevailed upon 
him to relinquish this purpose and consent to be voted for by his 
comrades in their company elections. Very early in the war he 
made a reputation as a marksman, and consequently was always a 
select man for the corps of sharpshooters. Generally, and by his 
own request, he was on the skirmish-line. 

His regiment — the 22d Virginia Infantry — was composed 
originally of border men from Western Virginia. It was com- 
manded first by Colonel C. Q. Tompkins, and, after his resigna- 
tion, by Colonel George S. Patton, formerly of Richmond. Until 
the summer of 1864 it belonged to the department of Western 
Virginia, and by consequence took jmrt in none o^ the. great battles 
of the war previous to that date; yet it was, during all this 



1864.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 649 



period, doing very hard service in the region of country lying 
between Droop Mountain and the Tennessee line, fighting fre- 
quently, and often winning victories over superior forces. It was 
said of John Lewis by his comrades that he was in every engage- 
ment — battle or skirmish — in which his company participated. 
On Scaiy Creek with General Wise, in July, 18G1, and at Carnifex 
Ferry under General Floyd, on the 10th of the following Septem- 
ber, he made reputation for coolness and bravery. In '62 he was 
elected 3d Sergeant of his company, in '63 2d Sergeant, and later 
in the same year Orderly Sergeant. In this capacity he acted with 
entire satisfaction to officers and men until the next vacancy 
occurred in '64, when he was elected 2d Lieutenant. In at least 
one subsequent engagement he commanded the " Kanawha Hifles." 
The first battle in the Valley in which he took part was at 
New Market, where, on the 15th of May, 1864, Breckenridge won 
a brilliant victory over the forces of General Sigel. The following 
is a co])y of a letter which he wrote in pencil the next morning to 
his mother, then residing Avith her son-in-law, Hon. William Fra- 
zier, at Rockbridge Alum Springs : — 

" Camp near New Market, Mmj IQth. 

^'Dear 3Iother : — Supposing you will hear of our fight at this 
place, you would be naturally anxious to hear from us. Firstly, 
I came out safe and untouched. Only two of our boys were 
wounded: Ben Noyes in the foot and Charlie Reynolds in the 
arm. It was the prettiest fight I ever saw. We fought in open 
fields (a new thing for us). Tiie troops behaved splendidly. The 
Yankees fought stubbornly, but were obliged to give way before 
the steady advance of our men. Our old regiment made her first 
charge and captured three pieces of artillery. *A Yankee regiment 
charged us with fixed bayonets ; but our little Colonel very coolly 
lialted us when they had come within about sixty yards of us, and 
ordered us to fix bayonets. They saw it and thought that was 
entirely too cool, so they broke and ran in great confusion, and 
then how we did pour it into them! I have not time- to write 
you much more ; will write again. 

" Monroe Querrier was badly wounded. I do not know of any 
more of your acquaintances that were hurt. It is the next morn- 
ing after the fight, so I can't give you any very correct amount of 
our loss; but as near as I can learn, our division and Iraboden lost 



650 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[September, 



about three or four hundred. The Yankee loss estimated at con- 
siderably over a thousand, 

" I never saw troops handled the way ours were yesterday by 
General Breckenridge. Oh! it was magnificent! done up accord- 
ing to Gilhani ! Give me the open field always after this. I think 
we captured seven pieces of artillery in all. -f- Rand [commonly 
called by his comrades Plus Rand] sends you and sister Sue his 
regards. 

"Good-bye, dear mother. I expect you v/ill hear from us again 
before long, as soon as we repair the bridge which the enemy 
burned over the Shenandoah. 

" Your son, John Lewis." 

From the Valley Breckenridge came, shortly after the battle of 
New Market, to reinforce the Army of Northern Virginia, and 
his command was in all the fights against Grant from the time 
General Lee reached Hanover Junction until tlie conflict around 
Richmond was over. " About 4| A. M. to-day," said General 
Lee in his official report of June 3d, 1864, " the enemy made an 
attack, on the right of our line. . . . He succeeded in pene- 
trating a salient in General Breckenridge's line and captured a 
portion of the line there posted. General Finnegan's brigade, of 
Mahone's division, and the Maryland battalion of Breckenridge's 
command, immediately drove the enemy out with severe loss." 
In this salient the 22d Virginia was posted, and a considerable 
part of it was captured by Hancock's troops when they broke over 
our works. Among the prisoners, most of whom were recovered 
in a few moments, was John Lewis. During the brief interval 
of captivity he was both the subject and the avenger of a remark- 
able act of treachery. The incident, narrated by himself and 
witnessed by a dozen of his comrades, is as follows : — While inside 
the Yankee line, and before they were called on to surrender, 
John seeing a Federal flag-bearer approaching shouting for victory 
and flaunting his colors over the captured works, could not resist 
the temptation to shoot him. Just as he was about to fire, a 
Captain appeared upon the scene and ordered him to put down 
his gun. Bringing his piece to an " order arms " he said, " I sur- 
render." No sooner had he done so, however, than that officer 
fired upon him with his pistol, the ball passing through liis coat 
sleeve. He immediately raised his gun and shot the Yankee 



1.C4.1 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. • Gol 

Captain dead. A private, probably witnessing the action as he 
M-as pushing on, raised his gun when the Captain fell, and fired 
upon John Lewis, the ball passing through his hat and grazing 
the scalp. He thereupon seized a gun which one of his comrades 
had thrown down ; at that instant were heard the victorious shouts 
of Finnegan's brigade as they pressed back the enemy and re- 
gained the lost ground ; the Federal turned to retreat, and receiv- 
ing in his back his death-wound, fell not many paces distant. 

Reference is made to this incident in the followinp^ letter to his 
brother, James F. Lewis. It was written in pencil on a scrap of 
soiled, greasy paper, torn apparently from some old ledger or 
account-book. There is probably an error of a day in the date : — 

" In Reserve, June 5th. 

" Dear Urother : — Thinking you may be uneasy about me, I 
will drop you a line. We had warm work yesterday. The 
whole of our company nearly was captured, but our men 
coming up at a charge, almost immediately afterwards, a great 
many of us were left behind by the retreating Yankees. Only 
eighteen of the company were captured for good. Twelve of 
them you know: — Lieutenant Donaldson, John Matthews, J. 
Chambers, A. M., and A. V. Donally, J. Noyes, (Poca), Creed 
and Bush. Parks, John Patrick, A. Singleton, Tully, Will 
AVilsou. Lance Arnold, badly wounded in head, died last night. 
Frank Ma3's slightly wounded. Jim, I have the glorious satis- 
faction of knowing certainly that I killed two Yankees. One of 
them, an officer, shot at me with a pistol not over ten steps after 
they had taken vis and our works, the bullet passing through my 
coat sleeve. I returned the compliment, and killed him instantly; 
the other one as they retreated. He had put a ball through my 
hat, I am sorry to say, for it ruined it. If you can, I wish you 
would write to Ma, and let her know I am safe. I have no ma- 
terials to write. Can't you come down and see us ? Better not, 
tlio', for it is about as dangerous here as in line of battle. 

" Your brother, John Lewis." 

In one of the fights around Richmond Captain Richard Cun- 
ningliam, the Adjutant of the 3Gth Virginia Infantry, was \vounded 
and disabled ; and John Lewis was, at the request of its com- 
mander. Colonel Thomas Smith, assigned to duty as Adjutant of 



652 • THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[September, 



that regiment. In this capacity he served during the brief re- 
mainder of his life. 

With Ewell's Corps — then commanded by Early — he moved 
from the Chickahominy about the middle of June, and, after the 
repulse of Hunter, at Lynchburg, down the Valley. From 
" near Brownsburg," he wrote thus under date of June 26 : — 

"Dear Mother : — I am sorry I could not come by to see you. 
I can assure you it was no fault of mine. I applied for a pass for 
forty-eight hours, but finding it had to go from the Colonel of the 
regiment all the way up to Lieutenant-General Early (and l)ack 
to the Colonel again) I gave it up in disgust. I am very glad you 
have at last had an opportunity of seeing Jim. ' I think he is 
looking remarkably well. As tar as Jam concerned, I never was 
in better health in my life, altlio' I feel considerably broken down. 
We have seen much hard service since I saw you last, both in 
marching and fighting. So far I have escaped unhurt. At Cold 
Harbor I had two bullets put through my clothes ; by the way, 
one of them completely spoiling that nice hat sister Sue fixed up 
for me on her sewing-machine. ... I have not seen sister 
Annie yet. ... I will write you from Staunton if we stay there a 
day or two, as I think Ave will be almost compelled to do, for both 
men and horses are more completely broken down than I ever saw 
them in my life. AVe have rested only three days since the 5th 
of May, and have marched (not travelled) over five hundred miles. 
I have tolerably good clothing yet. . . . 

" Your son, John Lewis." 

In a subsequent visit to Rockbridge he brought back the hat 
which his sister, Mrs. Frazier, had fashioned for him on her 
machine ; it bore the two perforations of the bullet. 

In the disastrous fight at Winchester, September 19th, 1864, he 
fell in the very midst and thickest of the fray. His lifeless body, 
though carried some distance by a comrade, had to be abandoned 
on the field. It was not recovered ; nor have the most diligent 
inquiry and search been able to identify his burial-place. 

With Colonel Patton — who fell on the same field — his soldierly 
qualities made him a great favorite ; and he was not less so with 
" the boys," who regarded him as brave as the bravest. 



-1S(;4.] THE U^'IVERSITY MEMORIAL. 653 

ALEXANDER S. PENDLETON, 

Lieutenant-Colonel, and A. A. G., 2d Corps, Army Northern Virginia. 

In a work whose noble object it is to preserve some memorial 
of the distinguished sons of our University, and especially of 
those who fell upon the field of honor, no name more fitly finds 
a place than that at the head of this article. From her halls he 
went forth to do battle to the death for his country. Right nobly 
did he bear himself in the trying contest; and tiiougli cut off in 
the flower of youthful manhood, it was not until he had reared a 
monument of honorable and lasting distinction. His native State 
possessed no son of nobler character and virtues; poured on the 
altar of patriotism no purer or costlier libation than his blood. 

Alexander Swift Pendleton was born at Howard, Fairfax 
county, Virginia, (the site of the Episcopal High School of which 
his father, the Rev. W. N. Pendleton, D. D., was then rector), on 
September 28th, 1840. His early years w^ere Avatched over with 
the most assiduous care by his parents, and his subsequent career 
bears testimony to the fidelity with which both mind and charac- 
ter were thus early developed and trained. When about ten, upon 
the removal of his family to Frederick City, Maryland, he was 
placed at school, having already been taught English at home, and 
having advanced considerably in Latin. So rapid was his pro- 
gress at school, that when Dr. Pendleton removed to Lexington 
in 1853 he was entered at Washington College though but little 
over thirteen years of age. Here his career was uniformly suc- 
cessful and brilliant. Though the youngest in his class, a mere 
child in appearance and ingenuousness, he soon took the lead, dis- 
playing at this early day the vigor and maturity which afterwards 
distinguished him. His most intimate friends were the oldest and 
best men in the class. While in his Senior year, and before he 
was sixteen, he was appointed tutor in Mathematics; and at the 
commencement in 1857, before the completion of his seventeenth 
vear, he graduated at the head of his class, carrying off the first 
honor and the Cincinnati oration as his prize. His speech on this 
occasion is said to have been remarkable for excellence, and elicited 
from a distinguished United States Senator present, a most flat- 
tering prediction as to the future eminence of tiie young speaker. 

When about fifteen he united himself to the Episcopal Church, 



654 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. [September, 

and after this time his education was directed with reference to a 
thorough ^preparation for the great work of the Christian ministry. 

The two years following graduation at Washington College 
were spent in teacliing, partly in a private school at home and 
partly in the College, where he continued for a time as Tutor. On 
the death of Professor Fishburn in the early part of 1858 he was 
appointed to carry the Sophomore class through the Latin course, 
which he did with acceptance and success. 

With the additional development and maturity obtained in these 
two years, and the widened information acquired by reading and 
travelling during the vacations, he entered the University of Vir- 
ginia in the fall of 1859, and maintained and extended there the 
reputation already gained. He graduated with distinction in one- 
half the academic schools the first year, and was a candidate for 
the Master's degree in the second. While a thorough and system- 
atic student, he was by no means merely this. His animal spirits 
were always high, and he was a prominent member of the cricket 
club, gymnastic class, and military company, which were favorite 
features of University life during the session of 1860-61. His 
piety, too, while of the cheerful, was of the useful and earnest 
kind. As one of the most active members of the Young Men's 
Christian Association he was accustomed to walk miles into the 
country on every Sunday, as Sunday-School teacher; and it was 
during this winter he determined, in order that he might the more 
speedily enter upon the duties of his chosen profession, to sacrifice 
the long-cherished desire of spending some years in Germany after 
the completion of his University course. 

But before the end of the session of 1860-61 the war was upon 
us. Prevented by the wishes of his father from joining the 
students who went to the capture of Harper's Ferry, he became 
impatient to join the army, especially after that father had himself 
taken the field. He was prevailed on to remain for a time ; but 
having received during the final examinations an appointment to 
a 2d Lieutenancy, he at once gave up College and reported at 
Harper's Ferry. Here he M'as soon invited by Colonel, afterwards 
General Jackson, to become his A. D. C, and ever after continued 
in posts of constantly increasing trust and importance with this 
great man, and with his successors in command of the 2d Corps, 
Army Northern Virginia. 

For conspicuous gallantry at Falling Waters, July 2d, and at 



1864.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 655 



Manassas, July 21st, 1861, General Jackson sought and obtained 
for Lieutenant Pendleton promotion to the rank of 1st Lieu- 
tenant, Confederate States Array. Subsequently, for eminent merit 
in every battle and in all arduous duty, he was again and again 
recommended for promotion by the same great soldier. He was 
made Captain just after the Seven Days' battles in 1862, and in 
the latter part of the same year received the commission of Major. 
Rising step by step in the confidence and regard of General Jack- 
son, he finally became his confidential and efficient Adjutant-Gen- 
eral, an i real, though not official, Chief of Staif. . His coolness, 
good judgment and energy were conspicuous at Chancellorsville 
upon the fall of Jackson ; and when General Ewell succeeded to 
the command he became the principal A. A. G. of the corps, and 
was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. In this position 
he remained until his death, siiariug all the subsequent arduous 
service and severe battles of this celebrated corps, and contribut- 
ing no little to its efficiency and success. When in June, 1864, 
General Early succeeded General Ewell and was detached and 
sent to the Valley of Virginia, Colonel Pendleton continued 
with Early as Chief of Staff, and participated in the whole 
of that memorable march from the banks of the Chickahominy, 
by way of Lynchburg, Salem, Winchester and Frederick City, to 
the very gates of Washington — a march in which Hunter was 
driven beyond the Alleghanies, the whole Valley cleared of the 
enemy, Wallace defeated at Monocacy, and the Federal adminis- 
tration made to tremble for its Capital. Before this exj^edition 
was begun Colonel Pendleton was offered a brigade, but after 
mature deliberation he declined the honor, from a conviction that 
he held a position in which he.could be of more efficient service to 
the army. 

In September, 1864, Early's bold game was checked. The 
little band of from 10,000 to 12,000 men with which he had made 
his audacious campaign, had drawn against it a triple or quadruple 
force under General Siieridan. The latter attacked at Winchester 
on the 19th of Se])tember, and never were Colonel Pendleton's 
coolness, daring, and efficiency better displayed than during that 
long and hotly-contested day. When, finally, in the evening the 
Confederates were forced from the field, he exerted himself to the 
utmost to preserve order, and secured the withdrawal of the trains 
and material of the army without loss. General Early took posi- 



656 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOB.IAL. [September, 

tion at Fisher's Hill, and tlie next two clays were spent in rectifying 
the disorganization and losses of the preceding battle. On the 
22d Sheridan again attacked, and having extended his line beyond 
the Confederate left, turned that flank, and soon with overwhelming 
numbers drove Early from his position. A portion of the artillery 
on the line was captured, and this loss added to the confusion of 
the troops. Pexdletox used every effort in his power to stay 
the tide of defeat. He was to be seen everywhere aiding the Gen- 
eral in command and others in rallying the troops and taking 
measures to stop the hostile advance. He escaped all the dangers 
of this terrible day until the battle was almost over. Just at dusk, 
as he was directing the firing of some guns with which he had 
checked the enemy's progress, he was struck in the groin by a 
rifle-ball and fell mortally wounded. Having been placed in an 
ambulance, ho was carried to Woodstock, where, in consequence 
of the pain from his wound, he desired to be left at the house of 
a kind acquaintance. Here, when informed by his intimate 
friend and companion. Dr. McGuire, that his wound was almost 
certainly mortal, he expressed cheerful resignation, and occupied 
himself between the paroxysms of pain in sending messages of 
love to his wife and other relatives and friends. About midnight 
the Confederate rear-guard withdrew from the town. Dr. McGuire 
then offered to remain Avith him to the last at the risk of being 
made prisoner, but tlie dying soldier refused to permit it, saying 
that at such a time of gloom his country could not afford to spare 
any one from his post of duty.. With Christian fortitude he bore 
his sufferings, and quietly and peacefully expired on the evening 
of the next day, September 23d, 1864, five days before the com- 
pletion of his 24th year. 

In December, 1863, Colonel Pendleton had been married to 
Miss Kate Corbin, of Moss Neck, Caroline county, Virginia. 

During the re-occupation of the lower Valley, a few weeks 
later, by General Early, the remains of Colonel Pendleton were 
removed to Lexington, where they fitly rest beside those of his 
only child, and but a few steps from the grave of the great chieftain 
whose most honored and distinguished staff-officer he Avas. 

Few men so young have been called to such positions of respon- 
sil>ility and trust, and fewer still have proved themselves able to 
fill them. As a staff-officer. Colonel Pendleton was most ad- 
mirable and efficient. Quick, vigilant, industrious, he had fine 



isr4] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 65' 



faculties for the organization and control of men. On the field 
his energy, coolness, and intelligence made him especially valuable. 

He possessed a mind remarkable for its thorough training, its 
vigor, and its versatility. He readily concentrated his powers 
upon the subject before him, and the grasp of his faculties was as 
extensive as it was strong, as varied as it was bold. The elements 
of Jiis character were much like those of his mental organization. 
Active, bold, vigorous, self-reliant, always determined, always 
hopeful, he exercised an influence over men far beyond his years. 
In lofty purpose, in elevation of soul, in all the generous impulses 
of friendship, and in devoted affection, he had no superior. His 
religion Avas of the noblest kind, unobtrusive, charitable, that de- 
lighted rather in deeds than in words, an earnest principle which 
guided, controlled, sustained him amid the trials of life, and 
enabled him to meet with perfect calmness and confidence the 
approach of death. 

In the long catalogue of youthful sons who sprang to arms at 
her bidding and fell in her defence, Virginia mourns no one more 
Avorthy of her grand renown, or whose opening life gave promise 
of a more useful and distiny-uished future. 



JOHN L. MASSIE, B. L., 

Captain of the Fluvanna ArtiUery. 

Among the exemplaiy sons whom Virginia mourns as martyred 
heroes in her great struggle against subjugating numbers, scarcely 
one deserves more grateful remembrance tharf Captain John Liv- 
ingston Massie, commander, at the time of his fatal wound, 
September 23d, 1864, of the '' Fluvanna Artillery," one of the 
batteries constituting the memorably efficient Light Artillery 
Battalion of the gallant Colonel William Nelson, of Hanover 
county, Virginia. 

Captain Massie was the son of Mr. Nathaniel Massie, Avho 
resided at one time in Waynesboro', Augusta county, Virginia, 
and at another on an estate in Albemarle county. He was 
among the younger of eleven children, of whom eight were sons, 
and of t!»ese several became mei) of mark. 
42 



658 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[September, 



Waynesboro' was the place of his birth, and its date was 
August 19th, 1838. 

His name, John Livingston, abbreviated into "Livy," became 
a term of endearment among all who knew him in childhood, at 
college, and amid the stern demands of war. 

'' LiVY Massie " was no ordinary boy in moral, mental and 
physical characteristics, and no ordinary care was taken by his 
parents for the right development and wise direction of his supe- 
rior endowments. Nor were the divine promises to parental 
fidelity unfulfdled in the career of this well-trained son. 

Friends of his cliildhood remember that, although then strik- 
ingly handsome, and of unusual size and strength for his years, 
he seemed never conscious of such advantages, and was, as through 
life, wholly devoid of vanity and conceit. Sincere and earnest, he 
was at the same time cheerful, gentle and amiable ; yet also bold 
and adventurous, and foremost in rare and hazardous enterprises. 
Fond of all active sports, he was especially distinguished among 
his young associates as a daring and successful swimmer. 

Thus even-tempered, generous and tender, while fearlessly 
resolute, he could not but be Avith young and old universally 
popular. 

Although singularly alive to the ludicrous and full of humor, 
he was iio less endowed with a genuine, kindly dignity which, 
tempering the mirthful, imparted a salutary influence to the 
delight taken by companions in his society. 

With rapidity sehlom surpassed, did young Massie from the 
outset acquire elementary learning. And the promise of intellectual 
superiority thus given was not afterwards disappointed. 

Having with successful diligence pursued preparatory studies 
in neicrhborhood schools, he entered the Freshman Class in 
Washington College, Lexington, Virginia, September 1853, being 
then just fifteen, though for his age every way remarkably well 
developed. 

Seldom, even among well-reared sons of the virtuous families 
of Virginia and her Sister states of the South, are there grouped 
together such a body of youths as those with whom " Livy 
Massie " was now associated. His class was a superior one, 
embracing, with others of distinguished merit, such names as 
A. S. Pendleton, Alfred Jackson, and W. T. Poague, his dearest 
friends, perhaps, in all the College. Each of these early achieved 
honor not to be unrecorded in history. 



ISM.] THE TJNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 859 

Of the gallant and efficient Artillery Battalion Commander, 
Colonel W. T. Poague, brief and modest mention alone is yet 
becoming, because he still lives to share the sorrows of his native 
State, and by his manly example to cheer the hearts of her 
injured people, his neighbors. 

Colonels Pendleton and Jackson, however, Massie's cherished 
friends, fill each, like himself, a patriot's grave, and are therefore 
entitled to more detailed commemoration. Of the former a succinct- 
memoir, prepared by one who knew him well, appears in this 
volume. Of the latter it is hoped a suitable memorial may also 
be given by some friend acquainted with his character and career. 

In cordial association with companions of this stamp did " Livy 
Massie" pass his college term, enjoying their confidence and love 
as among tiie best-endowed, most genial and most faithftd of their 
number. 

His capacity and success as a mathematician were especially 
conspicuous. With ability and concentration of thouglit rarely 
surpassed, he generally solved the most difficult problems occur- 
ring in the applications of Algebra, Geometry and the Calculus. 
Though from the singular simplicity of his character and his 
entire exemption from the desire of display, his achievements in 
there cases were so far from being paraded that they were really 
known of only by his intimate friends. 

Some time in his second college year occurred that crisis in his 
spiritual history which issued in his avowing himself a servant of 
Christ. He had, indeed, always evinced, as no doubt he had felt, 
sincere reverence for religion. And his excellencies of dispo- 
sition and deportment, accompanied by habitual attendance upon 
worship and use of other means of grace, had seemed to warrant 
the thought that he was almost, if not altogether, a Christian. 
Still, when about the date mentioned, during a season of peculiar 
religious interest in Lexington and its institutions, the great ques- 
tions of sin and salvation were brought home to his mind as never 
before, he realized, as till then unappreciated, the soul's wretched- 
ness out of Christ, and its precious privilege of peace through an 
accepted Saviour. And, seeking occasion therefor, he connected 
himself with the Churcii of his family, the Presbyterian Church 
in Waynesboro'. 

The earnest Christian life tiius begun was consistentlv main- 
tained up to the hour of his sutlden summons. 



660 THE UNIVEESTTY MEMOEIAL. [September, 

Snch was the estimate of his talents, attainments and character, 
that in his Junior year he was appointed tutor to instruct the 
younger students in mathematics. And the duties thus assigned 
he continued to discliarge with great satisfaction in addition to his 
own proper studies until he graduated and left college. 

Having so well accomplished the usual curriculum, Massie 
next, at nineteen, in the fall of 1857, entered upon the Academical 
course in the University of Virginia. The year following, 1858—9, 
besides completing academical studies, he took part of the Law 
Course; and in the year thereafter, 1860, received the Piploma 
of Bachelor of Laws; and was that fall admitted to the bar in 
Charlottesville ; bearing with him the admiring, affectionate con- 
fidence of Professors and fellow-students. 

He had now entered upon a career, which, with his intellect and 
character, and the prestige of so honorable a preliminary life, 
presented fairest promise of eminent success. Associated in the 
profession of his choice with an elder brother, Mr. N. H. Massie, 
already established in the esteem of the community, and in ex- 
tensive practice, he experienced none of the wearying delays which 
too often attend candidates for professional employment, but was 
introduced at once to the arena of active duty as a practitioner. 

Soon, however, was this opening career rudely disturbed. Those 
diversities of race, sentiment, and interest, which had always 
existed between the people of the Northern and those of the 
Southern sections of the country, aggravated by persistent injuries 
of the more powerful against the guaranteed rights of the less 
populous, and the stern remonstrances of the latter, ever futile, 
and therefore becoming continually the more threatening, culmin- 
ated, in 1860 in such triumph of Northern political schemes as to 
divest the Southern States of proportionate share in the public 
domain and other common benefits, leave them subject to foreign 
dictation, without control of their own institutions, and reduce 
them in flict to actual vassalage. 

These States, therefore, sought to escape a condition so harass- 
ing and pernicious, by resorting to their ancient and inalienable 
sovereignty, and renouncing the violated compact of Union. But 
not thus were they to be liberated. Not yet has the golden 
Christian rule attained such control in human communities, 
especially those of Puritan profession, as to remedy their vulture 
propensity to hold on to prey once securely grasped. Accord- 



18C4.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOET 661 



ingly, the effort at extrication made by the Soutiiern States became 
the pretext of immediate war for their subjugation. 

In response to its proclamation by the representative of North- 
ern plans, Virginia summoned her sons to the rescue. And for 
her protection they rallied with universal enthusiasm. Of the 
patriot band, "LiVY Massie" was among the foremost. Learn- 
ing that the Rev. Dr. Pendleton, who, on accepting command of 
the '' Rockbridge Artillery," had hastened to Richmond with a 
view to its armament, was to pass Gordonsvilie en route for Har- 
per's Ferry, on a certain day, early in May 1861, he that morning 
took the train from Charlottesville to Gordonsvilie, and there 
meeting his elder friend, the Rev. Captain, tendered his services 
as a private in the company. Being of course accepted, he was in- 
structed to join the battery at its rendezvous as speedily as possible. 
And with prompt alacrity complying, he became one of the most 
exemplary members of that justly honored organization. 

The "Rockbridge Artillery" was in its personnel a fine 
specimen of that unparalleled mate7-iel which composed the vol- 
unteer army for Southern defence. Never, perhaps, in the history 
of warfare has a body of men of such individual elevation, 
culture and tone, assembled to protect against threatened ruin 
their homes and their honor. And it was almost inevitable that, 
in spite of deficiency in arms and training, they should shatter, as 
tiiey did on every battle-field, invading columns of almost fabulous 
numbers and equipment. 

In the " Rockbridge Artillery," Massie found congenial asso- 
ciation. Choice young men, like himself, including several of his 
dearest friends,, were on its roll. A fair proportion, however, of 
another element was also admitted to represeiit the patriotic senti- 
ment of humble Southern citizens. Such a company, consecrated 
as it were by daily worship, and pervaded by the spirit of piety, 
intelligence, and honor, could not but be, as it really Avas from 
first to last, a model one, in all the high qualities of Christian 
men and citizen soldiers. 

In the brilliant affair at Falling Waters, a few miles from Wil- 
liamsport, on the 2d of July, 1861, tlie first skirmish in the Valley, 
Massie was No. 1 in the detachment which served the single gun, 
taken by Captain, afterwards General Pendleton, to cooperate with 
the handful of infantry carried by General Jackson to " feel " the 
columns of General Patterson. 



662 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [5c;n:ni;.a. 

After the few companies of inflintry liad well performed their 
part in checking the enemy's thousands, and creating confusion in 
their ranks, this single gun, served by Massie and his friends Avith 
all the coolness and precision of veterans, under a heavy fire of 
musketry, accompanying that of six or eight field-pieces, played 
unerringly and with admirable effect upon that line and those 
guns. Its first fire, well aimed, absolutely crushed and dismayed 
beyond return an adventurous squadron of cavalry. It next 
disabled a glittering brass piece, and sent its attendants in pell- 
mell that was ludicrous even amid the solemnities of battle, 
double-quick across the field,. And its subsequent discharges, 
scarcely less effective, so completed the lesson of caution to the 
invaders that they adventured no further effort at direct advance 
until General Jackson, satisfied w,ith having thus gently "felt" 
Patterson, withdrew altogether unmolested his little handful, and 
having rejoined the main body of his eager brigade, awaited in 
vain his antagonist's approach. 

It is related by General Pendleton, with affectionate remem- 
brance of his friend Ma.ssie's bearing on this occasion, as kindly 
courteous as it was gallant, that he himself being on foot near the 
piece, as was General Jackson during the action, and wishing to 
remount when its withdrawal was directed, found his horse so 
restive as to render difficult his regaining the saddle, and that 
Marsie observing the circumstance, immediately stepped up, re- 
p-ardless of the desultorv fire still continued by some of the 
enemy's line and guns, and with strong hand held the animal by 
the bit until his commander was reseated. 

In the battle of Manassas, three weeks later, the subject of this 
memoir again exhibited the same high qualities of the man and 
the patriot-soldier, as he did, indeed, everywhere — in camp, on the 
march, and amid the roar and carnage of the conflict. 

When, in the fall of 1861, General Jackson was detached from 
the army under General Johnston, near Fairfax Court House, and 
sent to the Valley, the "Pockbridge Artillery," long before 
chosen as the battery to attend his brigade, took part in the expe- 
dition. The campaign, prosecuted by Stonewall till near mid- 
winter, proved severe and trying; and Massie again attracted at- 
tention by his admirable conduct. He was particularly noticed 
by the General as managing with conspicuous courage and skill 
the gun of which, by virtue of being a non-commissioned officer, 



1SC4] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 663 

he had charge, at Dam No. 5, on the Potomac, in connection with 
the Chesapeake and Ohio Canah 

Merit so marked coukl not pass unmentioiied by commanding 
officers in their reports. Accordingly, this exemplary artillerist 
was thns repeatedly commended by his commanders ; and Jackson, 
now seconding the earnest tribute of the battery-Captain, without 
the knowledge of the efficient Sergeant or his friends, urged upon 
the ^yar Department at Richmond to reward so admirable a sol- 
dier by promotion. 

Massie was, in consequence, before the spring of 1862, com- 
missioned as 2d Lieutenant in the Regular Army of the Confed- 
erate States, and ordered to report to General Pendleton, Chief of 
Artillery. 

When he reached that officer the Peninsula campaign was in 
progress; and in it he served for a time uj)on the General's staff. 
Subsequently he was assigned to the Adjutancy of the artillery 
battalion under the command of Major, afterwards Colonel, Wil- 
liam Kelson. 

On the reorganization of the army, soon after, in May, 1862, 
one of the companies of the battalion, till then indifferently 
officered, elected him its 1st Lieutenant; and, as the Captain was 
absent, under censure, the charge of the company devolved upon 
him. With accustomed faithfulness he administered its affairs; 
but in the anomalous condition of the case he did not vacate his 
Adjutancy, rightly judging that it was unwise wholly to identify 
himself with a command Avhose control was unlikely to remain 
permanently in his hands. 

In the manoeuvres and skirmishes by which McClellan's ad- 
vance upon Richmond was impeded, up to the bloody day of 
"Seven Pines," Nelson's battalion well bore its part; and with it 
the calm, observant Lieutenant, as also in the arduous duties of 
that day, and in the eventful Seven Days' conflicts, in which the 
"Young Napoleon" was driven by General Lee from position to 
position, until he crouched under cover of his gunboats at Harri- 
son's Landing. In the artillery night attack afterwards made 
there upon his camp and transports by General Pendleton, from 
the opposite bank of James River, Massie with Nelson also ren- 
dered important service. 

The command, subsequently detained on the James and North 
Anna Rivers, to assist in covering the Capital against possible sur- 



664 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [Septcmb:>r, 

prise, could not participate in the splendid achievements of Cedar 
Mountain and Second Manassas. It was brought up, however, in 
time to aid in pursuing the enemy, and to rendezvous with the 
main army at Leesburg, preparatory to crossing the Potomac. 

Here, in consequence of disorders incident to so ceaselessly 
active a campaign, under a hastily devised system, and in view of 
emergencies to be anticipated, opportunity was taken to readjust 
some essential matters of organization. Among these was the 
consolidation of another inefficient company from the same county 
with that of which Massie had been elected 1st Lieutenant, and 
appointing him Captain of the whole ; and it is not too much to 
say that he proved himself a model company commander, and 
that his battery soon become one of the most efficient in the 
service. He proved himself to possess that peculiar power of 
commanding men Avhich is one of the highest attributes of supe- 
rior intellect and character. By mingled firmness and kindness 
he secured at once the respect and the love of his men. So calm 
was he habitually, so systematic was his administration, and so 
smoothly moved everything under his hand, that his battery 
seemed, like a well-adjusted machine, to work itself. Nor was he 
in the whirl of battle less self-possessed and efficient than he was 
judicious in camp. The serene steadiness of his eye in extremest 
danger, and the quiet firmness of his tone in giving orders, 
evinced alike a physical nerve and a moral force entitled to high 
admiration. All these qualities were abundantly exhibited in the 
effective service rendered by his company through the arduous 
campaign following his promotion, and in the severe contests of 
1863 and 1864. 

As a new Captain in Nelson's battalion, conducting his battery, 
he crossed the Potomac with the Army of Northern Virginia, in 
the summer of 1862, Avhen General Lee thus threatened Washing- 
ton and covered Jackson's assault upon and capture of Harper's 
Ferry, with its strong garrison and immense stores. 

In the battle of Sharpsburg, soon after, said to have been 
brought about to General Lee's disadvantage by the unfortunate 
falling of one of his despatches into McClellan's hands. Nelson's 
battalion had not the opportunity of participating, because it was 
part of a command detached for the purpose of guarding the 
passes of the Potomac. Excellent service was, however, imme- 
diately after the battle, rendered by the command of which Captain 



1864.] 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 665 



Massie's battery was a portion, and by it, under his direction, in 
arresting the columns of the enemy, which attempted to annoy 
General Lee's rear on his recrossing the Potomac at Shepherds- 
town. During an entire day those batteries, without the oppor- 
tunity of throwing up earthworks of any kind, and supported by 
only a handful of infantry, kept at bay the enemy's strong artillery 
on the opposite heights, and the large force of infantry which the 
drained bed of the canal enabled him to bring under cover to the 
water's edge. Exemption from disturbance and a season of rest 
and refreshment were thus secured to the Soutiiern army. 

Before nightfall several of the batteries had exhausted their 
ammunition, and after dusk none could fire with precision. For 
such reasons, and because there too much exposed to capture, they 
had to be withdrawn at dark, and each by its own route, on account 
of ravines which prevented their assemblage. The small sup- 
porting force of sharpshooters about this time giving way, a body 
of the enemy effected a passage to the southern shore. 

In the darkness, ruggedness of ground, and consequent isolation 
of batteries, it was supposed several might be captured, including 
•Massie's, which had occupied a position most exposed, perhaps, 
to such casualty ; but with the morning liglit it was found that he 
had skilfully withdrawn as directed, and tliat no loss of guns had 
occurred in all the number, save one or two left because the horses 
for their removal had been killed. 

The interval of repose which succeeded this encounter was de- 
voted to those preparations on either side which issued in the 
memorable attempt and defeat of Burnside at Fredericksburg, 
December 13th, 1862, where Massie, at his post in Nelson's bat- 
talion, fought with accustomed skill and effect; as, after maintain- 
ing his battery in full efficiency through a difficult winter, he did 
again early in the spring of 1863, with the force under Generals 
Early and Pendleton in the second battle of Fredericksburg, 
against Sedgwick, while Generals Lee and Jackson were crushing 
Hooker at Chanccllorsville. 

In the reorganization necessitated by the fatal loss of Stonewall 
Jackson, incurred at Chanccllorsville, May 1863, all the artillery, 
including the battalions previously unattached for use where most 
needed, was distributed among the three corps now constituted, 
and Nelson's battalion was assigned to the 2d Corps, with the 
eventful career of which, under Ewcll and Early, Massie's gal- 



666 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. [September, 

lant service was thenceforward identified. Thus crossed he the 
Potomac again, when Ewell led the advance into Pennsylvania ; 
and with the celebrated 2d Corps he shared the brilliant repulse 
of the enemy the first afternoon at Gettysburg, and the Herculean 
endeavors of the two days following to repair the error of not 
pressing on his heels when in full retreat, but pausing and per- 
mitting him to recover, fortify, and reinforce, in an impregnable 
position. 

After General Lee's skilful return from Gettysburg, and repair, 
as flir as possible, of that great disappointment, followed another 
season of preparation for continuing the gigantic struggle, which 
was only partially disturbed by Meade's receding before his great 
antagonist at Bristow Station and his subsequent punishment in his 
abortive demonstration at Mine Run, on both of which occasions 
Massie shared the honorable service of his corps. 

Another winter now occurred, in which, on account of deficiency 
of supplies, the task of keeping up artillery to a high standard of 
efficiency required extraordinary energy. Massie, however, suc- 
ceeded well with his, and emerged with his battery ia complete 
order for thorough service at the opening of the great campaign 
of 1864. In the battle of the Wilderness on the 5th and 6th of 
May, the 2d Corps constituted the left of the Confederate line, on 
the old turnpike leading from Orange Court House to Fredericks- 
buro;, and there Nelson's battalion did its work with habitual 
vigor, Massie and his battery admirably discharging their duty. 

Leaving on the bloody field his crushed thousands, Grant, still 
supplied with mercenaries in immense multitude, essayed to elude 
General Lee by a flank movement towards Richmond; but he was 
effectually headed off at Spotsylvania Court House, where the 
death-struggle was renewed. Here, during a conflict of more than 
two days. Nelson's battalion defended, ^vith distinguished resolution 
and success, an exposed central salient, Massie conspicuously 
sharing the achievement ; and when the enemy, somehow informed 
of the withdrawal of many guns after nightfall of the 12th of May 
to be ready for meeting his next flank movement, already observed 
to be begun, made a heavy night attack on a projecting portion of 
the line a little to Nelson's left, and succeeded in breaking through, 
producing temporary local confusion and capturing a number of 
men and of the guns that had been withdrawn, but brouglit 
quickly back and not yet unlimbered — Nelson's guns and Mas- 



1804.] 



THE L'NIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 667 



sie's among them — -served with masterly energy, contributed an 
honorable share to the unsurpassed result of remedying the disas- 
ter, re-establishing the line, and repelling the enemy's vociferous 
masses. 

Grant, thus again foiled and shattered, re-filling with accumu- 
lated numbers his thinned ranks, made another detour to the left, 
and was successively encountered, with like result, at Hanover 
Junction, Totopotomoi Creek, and Cold Harbor, Massie, with 
Nelson, meeting at every point the utmost demand of the occasion. 
Especially in the last-named j^osition, memorable as the scene of 
Jackson's great descent upon McClellan's rear, was the battalion 
to which Massie belonged, and lie himself with his battery, called 
to prominent service of even more than usual exposure, in the 
severe chastisement there again inflicted upon the enemy. 

The vandal Hunter, having now prosecuted his worthy career in 
burning private residences, granaries, and mills, destroying the 
libraries and aj)paratus of Washington College and the Virginia 
Military Institute, and reducing to ashes the beautiful, harmless 
buildings, Professors' houses, and others, of the latter educational 
establishment, consuming furniture and turning out shelterless 
unprotected ladies ayd infants, was threatening Lynchburg with 
his valinnt torch-bearers. An expedition was therefore organized, 
primarily to arrest these atrocities and chastise the marauder, and 
ultimately to .perform more important service. It consisted largely 
of the old 2d Corps, and was committed to the vigorous and intrepid 
Early. Of this expedition Xclson's battalion was a valuable 
element, and with it therefore proceeded Captain Massie in charge 
of his battery. 

Advancing rapidly upon Lynchburg, Early anticipated the 
valorous Hunter, and saved the town from insult, pillage, and 
arson ; but the assailant of women and their homes, trembling at 
the approach of men, too quickly beat retreat, and unfortunately 
escai)ing with his congenial crew through the mountains towards 
the Ohio, missed the penalty ho deserved, though of his miserable 
band many a poor wretch is said to have perished of fear, fatigue, 
and starvation. 

General Early, having thus scared off the poor, dark-hearted 
creature, proceeded down the Valley via Lexington and Staunton, 
to Winchester; and thence, after menacing Harper's Ferry, across 
the Potomac to Frederick, Maryland, with a view to operations 
against Washington, and other results, if found practicable. 



668 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. [September, 

In the encounter with and defeat of a large force of the enemy 
at Monocacy Bridge, on the 9th of July, Nelson's battalion 
operated with signal effect, and Captain Massie's battery was 
especially conspicuous for the energetic boldness with which it was 
manoeuvred. 

In all the movements thereafter, in front of Washington, on 
the return of Early's force over the Potomac into Loudon county, 
Virginia, and thence across the Shenandoah into the lower Valley 
again, Massie bore, with his command, a full share of the labor, 
privation and danger; as he did also in the ever-threatening, 
ceaseless operations of the veteran Confederate commander against 
the accumulating masses of the enemy between the Potomac on 
the north and Fisher's Hill on the south, up to the obstinate 
battle of Winchester on the 19th of September. 

During the severe contest of that day, maintained by the small 
Confederate army with their accustomed valor against fully four 
times their own number. Nelson's battalion, and with it Mabsie's 
battery, operated on the right, sustaining Ramseur's division, 
now reduced to less than two thousand muskets, with such de- 
termined resolution as effectually to defeat the successive col- 
umns brought up in attack. With like gallantry the guns of 
Colonel Braxton, under his direction and the persistent encour- 
agement of the vigilant Colonel Carter, Early's Cliief of Artillery, 
performed a similar service on the left, actually hurling back 
every charge of the enemy, even where in some places wholly 
unprotected by infantry support. So that, notwithstanding the 
untimely fall of the able and daring Rodes, in the very moment 
of victory, the enemy had been utterly beaten, and the day was a 
splendid triumph, when the enormous Federal cavalry force made 
its way around Early's unprotected left, and rendered indispensable 
the withdrawal of his diminished though victorious command. 
Throughout the protracted conflict, from dawn to dark. Captain 
Massie managed his battery with a skill and intrepidity worthy 
the great Southern cause. 

At Fisher's Hill, to which General Early now retired, the 
artillery was again hotly engaged in a sharp affair on the evening 
of the 22d. " Men and officers," says General Early, " behaved 
with great coolness, fighting to the very last; and I had to ride 
to some of the officers and order them to withdraw their guns 
before they would move." Of these Captain Massie was one. 



i!-.H4.] 



THE I':\IVF.RSITY MEMORIAL. 669 



His position^ on the extreme left, was important and critical. 
Upon the enemy endeavoring to turn that flank he directed his 
guns and fought them with such stu])born perseverance, and poured 
canister upon the flanking force with such energy and effect as to 
keep the enemy in check, and thus preserve the retiring trains. 
Some of his best men were here siiot down by his side, and many 
of his horses killed. Two of his guns were thus unavoidably left 
to the enemy. 

In this aflliir it was that Massie's beloved Washington College 
classmate and honored friend at the University and in the army, 
the meritorious Adjutant-General of the 2d Corps, Lieutenant 
Colonel A. S. Pendleton, fell mortally wounded while vigorously 
engaged in measures for checking the enemy's advance. 

During part of that night, and all day, the 23(1, the Confederate 
force sullenly retired, all along in line of battle by day ; and 
every hour or two halting, that the artillery might j)lay upon and 
arrest the enemy. 

About sunset of the 23d General Early, having resolved to 
make a stand, formed his line for action, and a portion of his guns 
opened Avitli spirit. Others, deemed unnecessary on the front, 
were sent with Captain Massie to a point supposed mainly out 
of range. Here, finding a seat on some rails, he was with his glass 
observing the enemy, when a shell exploded near, and a fragment 
struck him, entering the outer side of the thigh, two inches above 
the knee, and passing obliquely upward and inward, severed the 
large artery, nerve and vein. 

The best surgical attendance with the army was promptly ren- 
dered. But reaction from the shock and loss of blood could not 
be produced. In an ambulance he was conveyed to the rear, and 
in a kind home found a resting-place, until death in a few hours 
released him from suffering. Groat beyond description as was the 
pain he endured, unmurmuringly was it borne through the six 
lingering hours of ebbing life, M'ith the fortitude of a soldier ani- 
mated by the faith of a Christian. " iSTot my will, but Thine be 
done ! " was his repeated address to the Supreme Father. And 
just before midnight of that same day, September 23d, 1864, he 
quietly breathed his last. 

His remains were borne to Waynesboro', and subsequently to 
the family burying-ground in Albemarle, where, having been 
piously interred, they now lie awaiting the great resurrection 
summons. 



670 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. [October, 

Thus lived and died Captain John" LiviNGSTOisr Massie, one 
of Virginia's truest, worthiest sons, leaving behind, at twenty-six, 
as an aeconiplished scholar, brave soldier, able officer, sterling 
patriot, and admirable Christian gentleman, a spotless record, 
unsullied name, and noble career, to be held in grateful remem- 
brance by his native State, and by the gallant though unfortunate 
people in defence of whose honor he sacrificed life with all it has 
here most attractive. 

Very cheering is it to think of him, and of other Christian mar- 
tyrs in the same cause, as among those who, having lived for duty 
iu its Scriptural sense, " do now rest from their labors," and far 
away from earthly conflicts, have entered upon the privilege of 
citizenship in that " better country" which no aggressions reach 
and no inic[uities molest. 



R. BEALE DAVIS, 

Captain, Company K, and Acting Colonel -lOth Virginia Infantry. 

Robert Beale Davis was born February 18th, 1835, at 
Northumberland Academy, Virginia, of which institution his 
father, Mr. (now Rev. Jos. H.) was then President. His mother, 
who was Miss Martha Felicia Bealc, second daughter of Major 
Robert Beale of Revolutionary memory, dying within a few months 
after his birth, he was entrusted to the care of a maternal aunt, 
and remained some years with his grandfather at Hickory Hill, 
Westmoreland county. Upon the intermarriage of his father 
with this aunt in 1838, he accompanied them to Raleigh, North 
Carolina, in which city his father had pastoral care of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. 

Much attention was paid to his early education. Until his tenth 
year he was kept at home under the assiduous care of his mother. 
About this time, his father being assigned to j)astoral care near 
Randolph Macon College, he entered the preparatory department 
under the instruction of his uncle, Professor W. T. Davis. In 
his fourteenth year he matriculated, but remained only one year, 
in consequence of his father's removal to Fredericksburg. Here 
he enjoyed the advantages of the best schools in the town, until his 



isw.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 671 

father's appointment to a church in Richmond. Dr. Socrates 
Maupin was then conducting a classical school in Richmond ; and 
Robert, after attending a session as u pupil, associated himself Avith 
one' or two gentlemen as successors of Dr. Maupin when that 
gentleman became Professor of Chemistry in the University. In 
October 1854, he entered the University, where he remained two 
years as an academic student. 

Meanwhile his father having removed to Xorth Carolina to take 
charge of the Female College at INIurfreesboro', the son followed 
him, and for one year read law in the office and under the instruc- 
tion of the Hon. William N. H. Smith. On the 8tli day of June, 
1857, he appeared before Frederick Nash, Chief Justice, and R. 
M. Pearson and William PI. Battle, Judges of the Supreme Court 
of North Carolina, and after examination received from them 
the following testimonial, with authority to practise law in that 
State : — "We do certify that Mr. Robert B. Davis hath produced 
to us sufficient testimonials of his upright character, and upon an 
examination before us is found to possess a competent knowledge 
of the law, to entitle him to admission to practise as an Attorney 
and Couusellor-at-law, in the several county courts within the 
State aforesaid." 

In the fall of that year he returned to the University of Vir- 
ginia and entered the law dejjartment. During his residence of 
three years at this institution he was a member of the "^V^ashington 
Society, in which ho was elected to the Presidency for one term of 
his last session. In 1858, he returned to Westmoreland, Vir- 
ginia, and began the practice of law as^ junior partner of his 
maternal uncle, Hon. R. L. T. Beale, in whose family he resided. 
And thus he continued, both in his domestic and professional re- 
lations, until the breaking out of the war. 

• He had in early boyhood shown a decided fondness for military 
life, and though never at a military school, was quite familiar with 
tactics. Early in the year 1860, when the excitement North and 
South indicated the probable resort to arms, young Davis was 
prominent among cadets from Lexington in raising and oi'gunizing 
a volunteer company in the county. Perhaps chiefly owing to his 
zeal the company was raised ; and the officers succeeding in enlist- 
ing the sympathies of the citizens, it was handsomely uniformed 
and armed before any call was made f)r troops in {he State. With 
this company — "The Potomac Rifles," — commanded by Captain 



672 THE U^S^IVEESITY ^MEMORIAL. 



[October, 



W. r. Cox, Robert Davis entered the service as 1st Lieutenant, 
in May 1861. The Rifles were assigned as*Company K, to the 
40th Virginia Infantry, Colonel John M. Brokcnbrough, of Rich- 
mond county, commanding. 

During the summer and fall of that year this regiment occupied 
posts at Mathias Point, Marlboro' Point, and Acquia Creek. In 
the spring of 1862, it joined the brigade under General Field, at 
Fredericksburo;. Here the reorcyanization was effected. Lieu- 
tenant Davis by rigidly enforcing discipline had become unpop- 
ular with a large class in the company, and expecting defeat when 
subjected to the ordeal of a popular vote, he had prepared to join 
his uncle,, then Colonel of the 9th Virginia Cavalry, afterwards 
Brigadier-General R. L. T. Beale. His sterlino; worth had, how- 
ever, already been tested, and Avhen the trial came he was again 
elected 1st Lieutenant in his old company. The election of reg- 
imental officers was delayed a few weeks, from the fact that the 
companies were not all then stationed at the same point; when 
this occurred. Captain Cox was made Major, and Lieutenant 
Davis promoted to the command of his company. In this 
capacity he passed through all the great battles of 18G2 and 1863. 

But few of his comrades who had marched out so joyously in 
1861 now remained. Promotions and transfers to other arms had 
reduced them to some extent, but far the greater number had 
fallen victims to the bullet or to disease. Nothing discouraged by 
the fearful gaps made in his command, this young officer had led 
them bravely until the winter of 1863-4, when worn down by 
toil and exposure he got his fii'st leave of absence, and went to 
Charlottesville to visit his father's family. Before his leave of 
absence had expired, he was stricken down by a severe attack of 
erysipelas. For Aveeks the issue Avas in doubt ; indeed, his sur- 
geons entertained for some weeks but little hope of his recovery. 
Under the blessing of God, they succeeded in. raising him up, but 
would not permit him to return to his duties in the field until the 
month of August — he having been all that time under medical 
treatment. 

For many years he had been a, member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South ; but while separated from the religious in- 
fluences of home, and debarred from any regular attendance upon 
the ordinances of tlie Church, he had become lukewarm. This 
intermission from the active duties of the field seemed a special 



1SC4] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 673 

providence to re-awaken his religious convictions, and more deeply 
impress upon his mind the great truths of the Bil)lc. 

Having obtained permission from his physician, he tore himself 
away from loved ones at home, and rejoined his regiment near 
Petersburg. As senior Captain he resumed command of the shat- 
tered 40th — in which relation he had been placed by the fearful 
havoc of Gettysburg. During his absence the terrible scenes of 
the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor had 
been enacted, and had still further reduced the ranks of his loved 
comrades. 

At Petersburg, General Grant was still executing his flank 
movement to the left. On the 30th of September a decided at- 
tack was made, in which the enemy succeeded in carrying some 
positions occupied by our troops a little north and west of the 
Weldon Road, and about four miles south of the city. On the 
following day a vigorous effort was made to recover the lost ground ; 
and the 40th Virginia, Captain Davis commanding, formed a 
part of the force sent on this mission. During the night the 
enemy had fortified ; and leading his regiment upon one of these 
fortifications near the Peebles House, on the 1st day of October, 
he fell dead, by the concussion, it is believed, of a solid shot passing 
just over his head. The regiment was within very short range, 
and the galling fire told terribly upon it. The wounded were 
with great difficulty removed ; the dead were left as they fell. 

The second day after the death of Captain Davis, General 
Beale wrote to his sister, Mrs. A. T. Davis, from " Field near 
Petersburg " : — 

" How shall I write to you ? Oh for some balm to heal a broken 
heart. ... I saw Robert on Thursday ; he came to see me — 
I shall see him no more. 

" Actively engaged myself, it was only on yesterday, while 
drawn up in line of battle, that a rumor reached me that he had 
fallen. Richard was immediately sent; last night he came back, 
rei)orting that he could not fulfil my order to forward your poor 
boy's remains to you ; they were in the hands of our enemy ; and 
the telegraph had already been used to flash to his father the dis- 
tressing intelligence. . . . Rf)BERT fell where he should have 
fallen, commanding his regiment, and in front, where tlie enemy 
was nearest; a martyr to duty, to liberty, to a pure religion : how 
40 



674 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. [October, 

else would you have him taken ? A jewel jn your earthly glory, 
a gem in the crown awaiting you when Jordan's waters are 
passed. ... ^ Farewell, 

" Your brother, JRichaed." 

On the 11th of November, in reply to inquiries made by the 
afflicted mother, as to the last moments of Captain Davis, Lieu- 
tenant J. H. Chandler, who succeeded him in command of the 
company, wrote as follows : — " His last words to me were in refer- 
ence to an officer of the regiment who fell pierced through tlie 
heart by a fatal ball — ^Lieutenant Chandler, find an ambulance 
corps, and have Captain Lae removed as speedily as possible.' 
He fell about ten minutes after this, Avhile giving a command to 
the men near him to fire as rapidly as they could. This command 
I did not hear, being over fifty yards from him at the time; he 
being in command of the regiment, I of the company. He did 
not speak after being struck. His last moments were worthy of 
him, and of the cause for which he battled. He fell in the fore- 
front of battle, encoura2:in2; his comrades. 

" For your son, who fell nobly doing battle for his country's in- 
stitutions, we, his associates in the field, would mingle our grief 
and sorrow with that of those to whom he was nearer and dearer. 
Our consolation is that he fell as a soldier should fall, heroically 
doing his duty. Our hope is that his spirit rests in Heaven." 

No flags of truce were allowed at the time, and his parents 
were compelled to vait the lapse of some months. About the 
close of the year, at their solicitation. General Lee made applica- 
tion for the body; and General Grant caused diligent search to be 
made for it, the result of which he communicated in the following 
letter, the tone of which will be appreciated even by his ene- 
mies : — 

" Headquarters Armies of the United States, I 

January 3c^, 18(i5. J 

" General R. E. Lee, 

" Commanding A7'my Northern Virginia. 

** General : — I am glad to be able to inform you that the 
grave of Captain Davis has been identified. The body vvlU be 
disinterred and delivered to persons sent to receive it about noon 



1S64.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 675 

of the 5tli inst. It ■will be sent through our lines over the Squirrel 
Level Road. 

" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" (Signed) U. S. Grant, 

"Lieutenant- GeneraV 

A few days later General Lee, amid all the cares of that trying 
time, found leisure to write, even in detail, to Mrs. Davis ; — 

" Headquarters Army Northern Virginia, > 

'dth January, 1865. j 

" Mrs. A. T. Davis, Charlottesville. 

" Madam : — I made known the request contained in your letter 
of the 24th December to General Grant, and am glad to be able to 
inform you that in compliance with it, the remains of your son, 
the late Captain R. B. Davis, were sent within our lines on the 
5th instant. They were received by Captain Finney, and by him 
delivered to the Rev. Mr. Pearson, a Methodist minister of Pe- 
tersburg, who took charge of them and placed them in the base- 
ment of his church. Mr. Pearson telegraphed the information to 
the father of Captain Davis, and said that if he did not hear from 
him in a day or two, the remains should be interred in the church- 
yard of the Market Street Methodist Church. If you have not 
already heard from Mr. Pearson, you can carry out your wishes 
with reference to the body by communicating with him. I shall 
be happy if I have contributed in any degree to console you in a 
sorrow which has my sympathy. 

" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" R. E. Lee, General." 

Captain Davis now sleeps in Old Blanford Cemetery, near the 
remains of his paternal grand-parents. 



676 THE UNIVERSTTY MEMOETAL. [October. 



ISAAC T. WALKE, 

1st Lieutenant, and Ordnance Officer, Fitz Lee's Division of Cavalry. 

Isaac Talbot Walke, son of Richard and Mary D. Walke, 
was born in Norfolk, Virginia, Febrnary 22d, 1843. His early 
life was passed in his native city, where he received a good 
scholastic training, and Avas noted for his proficiency and correct 
deportment. As a boy he was distinguished for his love of study, 
for his intellectual capacity, for his cheerful obedience, and for 
the generosity of his disposition ; so that he was deservedly a 
favorite with both his playfellows and his seniors. 

At the age of sixteen he matriculated at the University of 
Virginia as an academic student, at the beginning of the session 
of 1859—60. As the reward of his diligence and proficiency, he 
received that year diplomas in the schools of Latin, Greek, and 
Mathematics. The following session he returned and pursued 
his studies with the same degree of earnestness, and with not less 
prospect of success, until 1861, when the war began. During 
this period there was great excitement among the students on 
account of the expected secession of Vii'ginia,and several military 
companies were formed by them, one of which was the "Southern 
Guards," commanded by Captain E. S. Hutter. This company 
Isaac Walke joined as a private. After the secession of Vir- 
o-inia the Southern Guards volunteered their services in the State 
and Avere ordered to Harper's Ferry, They remained there only 
a few days, not being at that time prepared for a campaign. 
Upon their return to the University, most of the members, fired 
by the spirit of patriotism, left the peaceful shades of college life 
and enlisted in companies for service. Isaac Walke went to 
Norfolk and joined an infantry company, afterwards Company F, 
6th Virginia, but at that time stationed at Craney Island, about 
three miles below Norfolk. This company was composed of the 
flower of the young men of Norfolk and its vicinity, and its sub- 
sequent record is one of the most distinguished of the war. 

Just before the evacuation of Norfolk by the Confederate 
forces, Isaac, at his own request, was transferred from Company 
F to the "Norfolk Light Artillery Blues," a body of like ma- 
terial to Company F, and whose war record is not less illustrious. 
Here he remained as a private nearly a year, when he offered him- 



1804.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 677 



self as a candidate before the Examining Board for Ordnance 
Officers, then in session at Richmond. Plis examination being 
eminently satisfactory, he was, though only twenty years of age, 
assigned to duty about April 1st, 1863, as a Lieutenant, under 
Colonel William Allen, with Jackson's corps, and placed in com- 
mand of the park-train artillery ordnance.' Soon after this he 
received his commission as 1st Lieutenant. 

In the month of July following we find him on duty with 
Long-street's corps, under Colonel Manning. . . . About the 8th 
of February, 1864, he was assigned to duty with General Fitz 
Lee's division of cavalry, and placed in charge of the reserve 
ordnance trains of the division. By letter of Captain Charles 
Grattau, dated February 11th, 1864, we find that Lieutenant 
AYalke (not yet twenty-one years of age) was recommended to 
Colonel Briscoe G. Baldwin, Chief of Ordnance, Army of North- 
ern Virginia, for promotion to the rank of Captain. Captain 
Grattan was ordnance officer of Stuart's corps, and wrote in 
answer to a letter of Colonel Baldwin asking for the names of 
those most worthy of promotion in the cavalry ordnance corps. 
Lieutenant Walke's name was placed first. 

About the lOtli of August, 1864, he was relieved from duty 
with the reserve ordnance train of Lee's division of cavalry, and 
made Ordnance Officer of the division. He was thus attached 
directly to Fitz Lee's staff — a position he had long desired, be- 
cause it would give him an opportunity for active field-service^ 
where he could display that ardor and energy so characteristic 
of his disposition. He expressed to a friend his gratification at 
this prospect of active service. 

He remained in this position of Ordnance Officer of Lee's 
division from the 10th of August until the 9fli of October, 1864, 
active and efficient in the performance of his duties, esteemed and 
1 beloved by both officers and men. His gallant career was sud- 
denly terminated at Woodstock, Virginia, in a skirmish which 
occurred in the streets of that place October 9th, 1864. Our 
cavalry had been partially surrounded and temporarily thrown 
into confusion, and Ijieutenant Walke, while attempting to rally 
the men that they might cut their way out through tiie enemy, 
was shot in the head and instantly killed. He died as he had 
lived, in the active discharge of his duty. Lee's cavalry was Ht 
that time temporarily under the command of General Rosser. 



678 THE UKTVEESITY MEMORIAL. [November, 

While at the University Isaac was a member of the Kappa 
Alpha Society, of which band of brothers, numbering only nine 
during the session of 1860 — 61, five were killed in battle, viz., 
Lieut.-Colonel William J. Pegram, Lieutenant Charles Ellis 
Munford, Adjutant Lomax Tayloe, Frank Voss, and Lieutenant 
Isaac T. Walke. Of the members of the same Society during 
tiie two previous sessions, Lieutenant William Z. Mead and Cap- 
tain Thomas Gordon Pollock were killed. All the members of 
that band were active members of the Southern army. The sur- 
vivors still cherish fondly the memory of their gallant and noble 
brethren who fell on the battle-fields of A'^irginia. 

Isaac Talbot Walke will long be remembered with pride 
and affection by his family and friends. Brief as was his life, it 
was long enough to develop a character which endeared him to 
all who knew him. Frank and brave, talented, generous, and 
unselfish, his memory will be cherished with respect, esteem, and 
love. 



HUGH A. GARLAND, 

Colonel, 1st Missouri Infantry. 

" At the battle of Franklin, Tennessee, on the 30th day of 
November, 1864, in the 28th year of his age, fell Colonel Hugh A. 
Garland, of St. Louis, Missouri, commanding the 1st and 4th Mis- 
souri regiments. In all that band of heroes, led during his life by 
the gallant and lamented Bowen, there was none truer, braver, 
more accomplished than Colonel Garland. Gifted by nature 
with a keen and powerful intellect and a stalwart frame, he Avas in 
all respects a thorough soldier. Of ardent feelings, generous im- 
pulses, and lofty principles, with a clear and profound conviction 
of the sacredness of the cause for which he fought, he was ever 
ready to give his life for it. . . 

"'The doom 
Heaven sends its favorites — early death — ' 

spared him the pang of surviving the cause to -which he had 
devoted himself. In all the thousands who have died for their 




/ 



f t 



1SG4.] THE UKIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 679 

principles uu'l their fatherland, no worthier sacrifice has been 
offered. Though his remains, removed from the battle-field, sleep 
beyond the Mississippi, in Belle Fontaine Cemetery, near St. Louis, 
Virginia has the right to claim him as a son worthy of her fame. 
He was born on her soil, a scion of one of her well-known families. 
His virtues as a man and a soldier belono; to the great catalogue 
of her priceless offerings, and his name to the tender memories she 
cherishes. Though, like Ricliel, her eyes be heavy with weeping 
and her heart ache for her noble sons who are not, yet the dull eye 
Avill kindle and the sore heart swell when she fondly recalls the 
manly virtues of such sons as the frank, warm, generous, and 
gifted Garland." 

Such were the terms in which the subject of this sketch was 
described in an obituary written by one who knew him well. 

Colonel Garland was the eldest son and third child of the late 
Hugh A. Garland, of St. Louis, and Ann P., daughter of Col. 
A. Burwell, of Mecklenburg county, Virginia. Hugh A. Gar- 
land, the father, Avas a son of Sp ttswood Garland, of Xelson 
county, Virginia, and Miss Rose, and was the brother of Gnicral 
S. Garland's mother. Spottswood Garland was tiie son of General 
John Garland, accidentally killed at Cliarlottesville while in com- 
mand of the troops that kept guard over Burgoyne's captured 
army. 

This family was remarkable for talents. Dr. Landon Garland, 
at one time President of Randolph Macon College, subsequently 
of the University of Alabama, was one of them. The fatiier of 
Colonel Garland is well known to the country at larre as the 
Clerk of the House of Representatives in the XX Vth and XX Vlth 
Congress, and the biographer of John Randolph, as well as an 
eminent lawyer and a man of letters. 

Before his removal to St. Louis, on the 13th of February, 1837, 
this son was born at Boydton, the county seat of Meckh-nijurg. 
The family emigrated to Missouri while Hrrxii was quite a child, 
and his early years were spent in the city of St. Louis, where his 
father was engaged in the practice of his profession. His health 
in boyhood was weak, owing to the unusual rapidity of his growth, 
so that notwithstanding the brightness of his faculties his parents 
forbore to urge him to study. At sixteen he was sent to Lynch- 
burg, Virginia, where he resided with his aunt and cousin. Gen- 
eral Samuel Garland, the latter of whom regarded him with the 



680 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 



[November, 



interest and affection of an adopted son. Here lie attended a 
private school tauglit by the writer, and was a classmate of the late 
James M. Boyd, M. A., and other yonths who have since been 
distingnished in varions walks of life. Yonng Garland's health, 
now re-established, permitted him to devote himself assiduonsly 
to his studies. This he did Avitli a degree of success rarely 
equalled. Ho accomplished in fifteen months, with marvellous 
ease, a course of study in the Latin, Greek, and French languages, 
and the Mathematics, which usually engages boys of the same age 
for three or four well-spent years ; and that too without debarring 
himself the amusements and exercises a})propriate to his age. His 
mind was one of prodigious power and energy, overcoming the 
difficulties which embarrass young students without apparent 
effort, and fixing every new idea as a permanent possession. lie 
entered the University of Virginia in October, 1854, and re- 
mained there two years, graduating in July 1856. 

His friends, and especially his last teacher, were disappointed at 
the results of his course at the Universitv. It was greatlv below 
their just expectations and his capacity. This was due to the fact 
that his genial and social temper led him to bestow much of his 
time upon amusements and society. Yet though these two years 
were less productive in academic honors than his friends had hoped, 
they were not without results. Not long after his matriculation in 
the University he had the misfortune to lose his father. Plis first 
impulse, overruled by older friends, was at once, at the age of 
eighteen, to assume the care of providing for his widowed mother 
and sisters. 

In the summer of 1856 he joined his mother, who had removed 
with her family to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Here for two years 
hesup2)orted himself by his own exertion, and pursued t!ie study 
of law. In 1858 he returned to St. Louis, obtained a license to 
practise law, and entered on that profession as soon as he attained 
his majority. 

The death of his father had so far diminished the means of thu 
family that he felt a weight of heavy responsibility for their 
future resting on himself; and steadied and nerved by this feeling, 
he threw all the energies of his splendidly-endowed intellect into 
the profession he had cliosen. Success was rapid, and promised to 
be brilliant, when the tocsin of war sounded over the land. It 
was the aspiration of l.is life to fill his father's place, as head and 



lg(j4.j THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 681 

supporter of the family, and manfully was he making good the 
task he had chosen ; but Virginian by parentage, birth and ed- 
ucation, Southern intus et in cute, he threw himself at once heart 
and soul into the contest. 

lie promptly raised a company of men, and repaired to Fort 
Jackson with Colonel Bowen. After the affair at Camp Jackson, 
where he and his comrades were captured, and marched through 
the streets of St. Louis, in peril of their lives, he remained quietly 
in that city for a time; until getting intelligence that his arrest was 
contemplated, he received from Colonel Bowen important dispatches 
for Governor Rector, of Arkansas, and suddenly left home, 
travelling first to Louisville, in order to avoid suspicion, and 
thence to Memphis and Vicksburg. Having discharged his un- 
dertaking ho came to Virginia, and receiving from the Confederate 
Government a Captain's commission, he returned to Memphis 
and established his recruiting station there. His efforts were suc- 
cessful, and after much labor and expense he was able to join 
Colonel Bowen with a fine company of Missouriaiis. They were 
mustered into service in the 1st IMissouri Volunteers, Colonel J. 
S. Bowen commanding, on the 6th of August, 18G1. 

The command participated in both days' fighting at the battle of 
Shiloh. Captain Garland escaped injury, but was soon after 
the battle seized by a severe illness which disabled him for duty 
for more than a month. While thus absent from his regiment he 
was elected Major. 

The 1st IMissouri was reckoned one of the finest regiments in 
the Southern army. Certainly, its officers were among the most 
accomplished. 

This regiment was subsequently attached to the division of 
General Brcckenridge, and with him saw much severe service in 
Louisiana and Mississippi, and especially in the attack on Baton 
Rouge. The summer campaign of 1862, and the climate of the 
lower Mississippi valley again so impaired Major Garland's 
health, that he was relieved from duty and visited Virginia to 
regain and establish it. 

In March, 18G3, when still scarcely fit for duty, he rejoined his 
command at Grand Gulf, having in the meanwhile been advanced 
to the grade of Lieutenant-Colonel. 

The spring and summer of 1863 were occupied in severe service. 
At Grand Gulf a division of five thousand men held Grant's 



682 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [November, 

army, fifty thousand strong, in check for two days, retiring under 
cover of the night, when nearly surrounded. 

The ill-starred operations in that quarter resulted at last, as is 
well known, in General Pemberton being besieged and captured 
with his whole command in Vicksburg. 

Colonel Garlaxd's command bore its part well in all these 
operations, suffering as the rest did, and bearing their privations 
like heroes. 

Colonel Garland while on parole again visited Virginia, and 
laid in a fresh stock of health and strength, both of Avhich had 
suffered greatly from the campaign and siege which he had endured, 
and the hardships attendant on both. 

Having been exchanged, he again entered on active duty in 
February 1864, rejoining his regiment at Meridian, Mississippi. 
They had never been in a fight without him, and he made it a 
matter of pride that they should never be. 

Colonel Riley, his immediate superior, was killed on the 30th 
of May, 1864, and Garland succeeded to the command of the 
regiment, which was now in the army of General Joseph E. 
Johnston. 

In all the operations of that eventful campaign he bore his part 
with manly fortitude and unflagging spirit. The retreat to Atlanta 
was one series of battles and marches — the troops halting and 
fortifying under fire almost daily. In a letter dated August 12th, 
1864, in the field, he writes : — " My health is fine. The Lord has 
watched over and protected nie tlius fiir, and I ought to be very 
grateful. My regiment is dwindling away daily, and I fear there 
will not be many of us left by the time this campaign is over." 

He passed unscathed through all the battles and skirmishes of 
that summer and fall, and still kept heart and hope, until the 
march of General Hood into Tennessee in November 1864. The 
last letter he ever wrote, dated November 8th, near Tuscumbia, con- 
tains the following : — " "We are inider orders to move at a moment's 
notice, but in what direction none of us know. In fact the whole 
campaign has been a mystery. The general opinion is that we 
are to cross the river (Tennessee) at Florence and go into Ten- 
nessee; but somehow or other I do not think so." 

The enormous folly of the march into Tennessee was accom- 
plished. In the attack on Franklin, Colonel Garland, com- 
manding the brigade, led his men upon the Federal works in the 



1SC4 



THE IINJVEKSITY MEMORIAL. GSl 



thick of the fight, and fell, shot through the head, at the very- 
foot of the rampart. There was but one voice as to the gallantry 
Avhich distinguished him iu action, and the cheerfulness which 
enlivened the weary march and the cheerless bivouac. Danger 
and toil exerted no effect ujion his character, save to steady and 
deepen the seriousness of its tone. A strong religious fteling had 
pervaded his mind for some months before his death, which found 
expression in his correspondence and conversation as well as iu 
his life. 

Thus fell in the flower of his days one of the brightest intellects 
and most richly endowed natures Avhich the South gave to her 
cause. Though fame had not yet found him, it Avas only because 
time and opportunity were wanting. He Avas well known to those 
who were acquainted with the extraordinary resources of his talents, 
to be capable of almost any achievement of intellectual energy or 
manly heroism. Along with these brilliant qualities he possessed 
others as well adapted to inspire affection as they were to excite 
admiration. His heart was large and tender, his temper genial 
and affectionate, his manners cheerful and unvaryingly courteous. 

He lived long and well enough to give assurance that but for 
his untimely end (if such an end can ever be justly called untimely), 
the highest prizes of life, in fame and fortune, and the love of men, 
were within his easy grasp — long enough to leave a memory 
fragrant with tender graces, heroic virtues, and Christian faith. 



END OF VOLUME IV. 



The Uniyeesity Memoeial; 

VOLUME V— 1865. 



JOHN Y. BEALL, 

Acting Master, Confederate States Navy. 

JoHJsr Yates Beall was born in Jefferson county, Yirginia, 
on the 1st day of January, 1835. 

On the mother's side he was descended in a direct line from 
Sir William Howard, the " belted Will" celebrated in the "Lay 
of the Last Minstrel," whose 

" Bilboa blade, by Marchnien felt. 
Hung in a broad and studded belt." 

The Yates, Orfeurs, and Aglionbys, of Cumberland county, 
England, were his cousins. His father, George Beall, was an 
enterprising and successful farmer in his native county of Jeffer- 
son, one of the richest counties in the Valley of Yirgiuia. 

JoHX Y. Beai.l entered the University of Yirginia in the 
year 1852, and remained three sessions, two of which he devoted 
to academic studies, and the third and last to law and political 
economy. He was an attentive and diligent student, but not 
ambitious of collegiate honors. 

His father, at whose instance he had embarked in the profession 
of law, dying soon after his return from College, he abandoned 
law and took charge of the homestead farm as agent and manager 
for his mother, in which capacity he was engaged when the war 
broke out in 1861. 

He was a gentleman of scholarly attainments and refined and 
cultivated literary taste. His reading was extensive, but his de- 
votion to certain favorite authors was too exclusive to admit of 
much catholicity in his literary preferences. He exhibited sim- 
ilar exclusiveness in his personal intimacies and associations, and 
similar devotion to the few admitted into the circle of his intimate 



1805.1 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 685 



friendship. He was a man of thought, observation, and original 
reflection, of undoubted talent, and the most genuine and lofty 
courage. He was distinguished for frugality, tem2)erance in eat- 
ing, and total abstinence in regard to alcoholic liquors. For 
several years before his death he Iiad been a consistent communi- 
cant of the Episcopal Ciiurch. 

During the excitement incident to the suppression of the raid 
of John BroNvn into Virginia in the fall of 1859, Lawson Botts, 
Esq., organized a company of volunteers called " Botts's Greys," 
which, in the military organization of the State, ranked as Com- 
pany B in the 2d Regiment of Virginia. When the war broke 
out, in April 1861, this company was among the earliest in the 
field, and, under the lead of its gallant captain, participated in 
the capture of Harper's Ferry on the 17th of April. Beall was 
a private in its ranks; and when the 1st Brigade was organized it 
was placed under the command of General Thomas J. Jackson, 
and was comiposed of the 2d, 4th, 5th, 27th, and 3od Regiments. 
It was thus that Beall became a private in the "Stonewall 
Brigade," as this brigade afterwards became known, taking the 
immortal sobriquet with which fame baptized its great captain. 
Although his comrades won great and merited distinction at the 
battle of iNIanassas, on the 21st July, 1861, Beall was deprived 
of the glory of participating in consequence of an unpremeditated 
leave of absence, occasioned by a furlough to accompany a sick 
companion, the son of a neighbor, to his home in Jefferson. Pie 
was not able to rejoin his company until after the battle was over 
and the great victory achieved. 

In the following October (1861), being again at home on fur- 
lough, he volunteered to lead the militia in an endeavor to support 
Turner Ashby, who had been ordered to check-an advance of the 
Federals from Harper's Ferry in the direction of Ciiarlestown. 
The attempt had been only partially successful on Ashby's part, 
when it became important to dislodge the enemy from a dismantled 
building on the outskirts of the little village of Bolivar. Beall 
threw himself at the head of the militia and advanced, firing, upon 
the enemy, M'ho retreated, but not until one of their number had 
severely wounded him by a minic ball, which, striking him 
obliquely in the right breast, broke three ribs and passed around 
the body. 

This wound disabled him from active service during the re- 



686 _ THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [February, 

mainder of the war. For a long time his friends thought it 
almost impossible for him to recover. At the day of his death 
his wound was not entirely healed. He received a discharge from 
the army on the ground, as set forth therein, of permanent dis- 
ability arising from a wound received on the 16th day of October, 
1861, which penetrated the right lung and increased a hereditary 
tendency to consumption. 

After this final discharge, in the spring of 1863, Beall laid 
before the Secretary of the Navy a written programme of offensive 
operations, which, he suggested, could be directed against the 
enemy on the waters of the Potomac, York, and Chesapeake. The 
Secretary appointed him an Acting Master in the Navy, and gave 
him authority to recruit such followers, not liable to conscription, 
as were willing to join him. Under this authority, he recruited a 
small number of young men, who, from causes connected with 
their nativity or physical condition, were not liable to military 
duty. 

The command of this small party — not over a dozen at first — 
he offered to Colonel (afterwards Brigadier-General) Edwin G, 
Lee, a cousin of General 11. E. Lee, who had just resigned com- 
mand of the 33d Regiment of Virginia Volunteers (Stonewall 
brigade) on account of disease aggravated, if not contracted, in 
the campaigns of General T. J. Jackson. This company started 
from Richmond about the 1st of April, 1863, and proceeded to 
Matthews Court House. On this expedition nothing of impor- 
tance was accomplished except such a reconnoissance as convinced 
both Lee and Beall that with proper equipments and stronger 
force, the enemy could be subjected to such loss and annoyance as 
would com[)el him to increase his garrisons and forces on the Pen- 
insula. The former officer, Lee, having been offered an appoint- 
ment with the rank of Colonel of cavalry, accepted it, and left 
Beall to continue his partisan operations alone. 

During; the summer and full of 1863, Beall conducted three 
several expeditions to the Peninsula, captured and brought back a 
good many Yankee sloops with their cargoes, destroyed Cape 
Charles Light-House, cut the submarine telegraph between Cher- 
rystone and Old Point — in fine, gave the Federals so much 
trouble and annoyance that Brigadier-General Wistar was sent to 
Matthews and neighboring counties for the express purpose of cap- 
turing him. Wistar's force for this purpose consisted of one regi- 



1S6-.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 687 

ment of nogro infantry, two of white cavalry, and one battalion 
of artillery ; also three gunboats in North river, three in East 
river, two on the Pianketank, and one or two off New Point 
Comfort. Doubtless General Wistar did not know that he was 
sent with this formidable army to contend against an Acting Mas- 
ter, whose force, all tokl, consisted of eighteen marines, backed by 
a fleet of two small sail-boats ! 

It is not surprising, under the circumstances, that AVistar suc- 
ceeded ia the ohject of his expedition ; and about the middle of 
November, 1863, Beall. and his whole party were captured and 
taken to Fort INIcHenry, where their leader was thrown into irons 
as a pupate. The Confederate Government retaliated, and confined 
an equal number of Federal prisoners as hostages, subject to the 
same fate and treatment. Attention was thus called to the matter, 
and upon finding that Beall was a regularly commissioned officer 
and his men regularly enlisted. General B. F. Butler, then com- 
manding the department, released them from manacles and had 
them placed upon the footing of regular prisoners of war. Sub- 
sequently they were all exchanged, and returned to Richmond. 

Beall had laid before Secretary Mallory sundry communica- 
tions looking to the successful development of various resources 
of the Confederacy as yet untouched, and which might be resorted 
to without diminishing the material then in use. He asked no 
men who were not, like himself, from wounds or other causes, ex- 
empt from military duty, and such as he himself could recruit. 
His schemes had in them something of romantic daring. They 
embraced, 1st, privateering on the waters of the Cliesapeake, Poto- 
mac, York, and adjacent waters; 2d, privateering on tlie Nortliern 
lakes, and releasing the Confederate prisoners confined on John- 
son's Island ; 3d, the employment of the large number of escaped 
prisoners and Soutliern refugees in Canada by transferring them, 
secretly, to the Indian country, in the north of Minnesota and ad- 
jacent territory, and thence stirring up the tribes against the 
United States. 

In the first of these enterprises he had already succeeded in 
withdrawing from the field of more active operations a force of the 
enemy entirely out of proportion to the small number engaged in 
effecting this diversion. Tlie project of releasing the prisoners on 
Johnson's Island Mr. ^lallory ostensibly discouraged ; subse- 
quently, however, and witiiout giving Beall either the credit of 



688 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. [February, 

its suggestion or an opportunity to participate, he secretly pre- 
pared an expedition to operate from Canada as a base, and placed 
it under charge of Lieutenant Wilkinson of the Navy. This ex- 
pedition was attended with that almost fatality of ill-success which 
seemed to beset the enterprises undertaken by Mr. Mallory. Not 
only was it a failure, but its disclosure to the enemy put him upon 
his guard, and rendered any future attempt uj)on Johnson's Island 
well-nigh hopeless. Beall, however, did not despair, nor 
abandon the idea of releasing the prisoners on Johnson's Island 
by a demonstration from Canada. In the spring of 18G4 he 
quietly left Richmond, crossed the Potomac into Maryland, and 
made his way in disguise to Canada. He Avas there joined by 
Bennett G. Burleigh, a young Scotchman, the son of a master 
mechanic of Glasgow. He had come to America to join the cause 
of the Southern States ; had run the blockade from New York to 
Richmond, where, having no one to vouch for him, he soon found 
himself in Castle Thunder. He had in his pocket the model or 
draft of a submarine battery, the invention of his father, Avhich he 
wished to lay before some competent authority of the Confederate 
States ; and after many unsuccessful efforts to obtain his release, 
was finally taken before the celebrated Captain John Brooke, in- 
ventor of the Brooke cannon, planner of the ram " Virginia," 
and discoverer of the deep-sea sounding-lead. Burleigh was re- 
leased by recommendation of Captain Brooke, and joined Beall 
in his first exi)edition on the Chesapeake, was captured, and ef- 
fected his escape from prison by an act of extraordinary hardihood 
and daring. He and Beall again met in Canada, and he at once 
consented to join the expedition against Johnson's Island. This 
attempt was made by a band of Southern refugees from Canada, 
with Beall at their head, on the 19th of September 1864. The 
result is thus briefly told in Beall's diary : — 

KAID ox lake ERIE. 

Immediately on my arrival in Canada, I went to Colonel 
Thompson at Toronto, and made application to start a privateer on 
Lake Huron. He informed me of a plan to take the Michigan 
(14 guns), and release the Confederate officers confined at John- 
son's Island. I immediately volunteered, and went to Sandusky, 
Ohio, to meet Captain Cole, the leader. We arranged our plans. 



isco.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 689 

and separated. Cole stayed at Sandusky. I came to AVindsor to 
collect men and cany tliein to the given point. On Monday 
morning Ave started, some from Detroit, some from Saudwieli, some 
from Amherstburg. When off Kelly's Island, I seized the PhUo 
Parsons, and mustering my men, found only some twenty there. 
We went back to Middle Bass Island to procure wood and wait 
for the time when the steamer Island Queen came up, and we 
took her. I then started back to attack the Michigan, Avhen sev- 
enteen of my twenty men mutinied, and refused to go forward, and 
this necessitated my turning back, thus abandoning Cole to be 
hung, a most cowardly and dishonorable affair. 

As he afterwards suffered death for this attack on Johnson's 
Island, it may not be amiss to publish liere his own defence, con- 
tributed by him to a Canadian journal after his return to that 
province : — 

'^Communication to a Canadian Journal. 

" Me. Editor : — You condemn the conduct of those who cap- 
tured the two steamers on Lake Erie as infrinacino- the laws of 
Canada. Cognizant of the facts, I wish to present them to you, 
hoping to win. you to reserve your decision. 

" Tiie United States is carrying on war on Lake Erie against 
the Confederate States (either by virtue of right or sufferance from 
you), by transportation of men and supplies on its Avaters ; by 
confining Confederate prisoners on its islands; and lastly, by the 
presence of a 14-gun steamer patrolling its Avaters. The Con- 
federates clearly have the right to retaliate, provided they can do so 
without infringing your laws. They did not infringe those laws ; 
for, first, the plan for this attack was matured ahd sought to be 
carried out in the United States, and not in Canada; there was 
not a Canadian, or any man enlisted in Canada. Secondly, no 
act of hostility was committed on Canadian Avaters or soil. Any 
man may lawfully come into or leave Canada as he may please, 
and no foreign Government can complain of the exercise of this 
right here. These men embarked on an American vessel from 
Detroit, or sprang on it Avhile in motion, from Canadian Avharves. 
The boat did not properly stop at Sandwich, or Andierstburg at all, 
as the Customs Avill show. It touched at two American ports, and 
Avas not captured until Avithin range of the thirty-pounder Parrott 
44^ 



G90 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [February, 

guns of the fourteen-gun steamer. What act ol" hostility had been 
committed up to this time? Another boat, containing thirty or 
forty United States soldiers, was captui'ed in an American port. 
After wooding up, the PJiilo Parsons proceeded to the mouth of 
Sandusky Bay for the purpose of attackin.g the Michigmiy when 
six-sevenths of the crew refused to do duty, and thus necessitated 
the abandonment of the enterprise. 

" 3clly. What ir. this Michigan that she cannot be attacked? 
Is the flict that she carries thirteen more guns than tlie treaty 
stipulation between the United States and England allows, a 
sufficient reason why she is not to be subject to attack? England 
allows this boat to remain guarding Confederate prisoners, though 
she carries an armament in violation of the treaty. 

"Before these men are condemned, judge if they have broken 
your laws. No ' murder ' was committed ; indeed not a life was 
lost. There was no searching of prisoners, no ' robbing.' It is 
true the boats were abused ; but, Sir, they were captured by Con- 
federates, enemies of the United States, and however questionable 
the taste, the right is clear. These men were not ' burglars ' or 
' pirates,' enemies of mankind, unless hatred and hostility to the 
Yankees be taken as a sin agaiust humanity or a crime against 
civilization." 

On their return to Canada, after this expedition, Bi:all escaped 
detection, but Burleigh was arrested, and surrendered to tlie 
authorities of the United States under the extradition treaty be- 
tween the two countries. In the end, however, he escaped from 
prison, made his way back to Canada, and thence across the 
Atlantic to his native Scotland. 

Beai.l was less fortunate. On the 16th day of December, 
1864, he fell into the hands of the enemy. Raids from Canada 
into the territory of the United States were the order of the day. 
Lieutenant Bennet H. Young, at the head of ten or twelve Con- 
federates, had ridden into the town of St. Albans, robbed one or 
more banks, attempted to fire the town, and finally galloped over 
the border into Canada. The raid on Lake Erie has been already 
described. The relations between the United States and Canada 
wei^e becoming more and more precarious. 

Major- General John A Dix, an officer of the Unitea States 
army, who, though removed from the field in 1863 for real or 
supposed incompetency, was possessed of acknowledged ad minis- 



1805.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. <)91 



trative and police ability, was now in command of the Depart- 
ment of the East, with headquarters at New York city. He 
issued an order declaring that in all future cases the raiders should 
ho jnir sued across the 6or<ier, captured, and brought back to the 
jurisdiction of the outraged territory. Tiiis exasperated the Can- 
adians in turn, and President Lincoln had to interpose and rescind 
the obnoxious order. It was about this time that Beall, in con- 
junction with several escaped Confederate prisoners tiien in 
Toronto, conceived the plan of the raid which resulted in liis 
capture. 

The party, however, when the scheme became ripe for execution, 
comprised many Canadians, and numbered in all from twenty-five 
to thirty persons. The scheme was to capture a military train on 
the New York and Erie Railroad, between Dunkirk and Buffalo, 
in the State of New York. The party was to rendezvous at or 
near Dunkirk, some pi'oceeding thither directly by rail, and others 
were to cross Lake Erie in boats from the Canadian shore. Many 
disappointments ensued from the unfavorable weather and other 
causes, and many of the party failed in getting to the rendezvous, 
being disheartened by repeated failures or deterred by prudence 
and timidity. Finally the party dwindled down to five, who 
found themselves about the 10th of December in and near Buffalo, 
and proceeded thence towards Dunkirk, and made an ineffectual 
effort to remove a rail from the track. Failing in this they crossed 
Lake Erie, and proceeded to Port Colburn in Canada. The next 
night a second attempt was made, and a second failure ensued. 
On the third evening the party were again too late to fasten any 
effectual obstruction upon the railway : unfortunately, for them- 
selves at least. Colonel Martin of the 14th Kentncky Cavalry, 
who was in command, took an iron rail which he found lying in 
the vicinity and fastened it on the track. Scarcely had he done 
so when the train was seen approaching. The party had only 
time to conceal themselves. Nothing was broken ; only a tem- 
porary stoppage occurred, and the train resumed its course. The 
raiders returned to Buffalo, and proceeded thence to the Suspen- 
sion Bridge. At this point Beall was arrested while waiting 
on the American side for the arrival of the train to carry him 
across the bridge. lie could easily have escaped arrest by crossing 
on foot, as did his companions, except the boy Anderson, wiio 
afterwards purchased his own exemption by betraying and testify- 



692 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[February, 



ing against his leader. It was, indeed, tlirough anxiety for the 
safety of this boy that Beall was captured. He and Anderson 
were taken to New York city, and confined at police headquarters, 
until lie was fully identified as the leader of the expedition against 
Johnson's Island, by Ashley, the clerk of the Philo Parsons. 

During this period of his confinement he kept a diary, which 
afterwards came into my possession, and which is exceedingly 
interesting. On the 5th of January, 1864, he was removed to 
Fort Lafayette, a military prison situated eight miles below the 
city, in New York harbor. On the 20tli he was arraigned for 
trial before a military commission consisting of six United States 
officers, appointed by Major-General John A. Dix, commanding 
the Department of the East. Beall objected to being tried by a 
military commission, though he did not object to the members of 
the one before whom lie was arraigned. His protest was entered 
on the record. When asked whether he was ready to proceed to 
trial, he rose, and in a manner perfectly composed and respectful, 
replied substantially as follows: "I am a stranger in a strange 
]and — alone and among my enemies ; no counsel has been assigned 
me, nor has any opportunity been given me either to obtain coun- 
sel or procure evidence necessary for ray defence. I would request 
that such counsel as I may select in the South be assigned nie, and 
that permission be granted him to appear and bring forward the 
documentary evidence necessary for ray defence. If this can not 
be granted, I ask further time for preparation." A report of the 
arraignment and of the prisoner's remarks appearing in the New 
York journals was brought to my attention, and I addressed a 
letter to General Dix from Toronto, Canada West, requesting 
permission to go on to New York to defend ray friend. My letter 
received no reply. I forwarded, however, the proper documentary 
evidence of his regular commission in the Confederate States navy. 

It is proper to state further that Beall did succeed, through 
counsel or otherwise, in communicating with Colonel Thompson, 
the Confederate agent in Canada, and that the latter responded, 
inclosino- to General Dix, and also to Beall's counsel, a certificate 
from Lieutenant-Colonel Martin, who commanded the raiding 
party, in which the latter stated that the real object of the inter- 
ception of the cars between Dunkirk and Buffalo was to release 
from their guard Confederate prisoners, viz., Brigadier-Generals 
Cabell, Marmaduke, and other officers, who were being transported 



1865.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 693 

from Johnson's Island to Fort Warren ; that he (Martin) did not 
explain the real object of the attack on the train to any of his 
command but his brother officer Beall, but left the others to 
their own conjectures upon the subject. This certificate of Colonel 
Martin was not allowed in evidence by the Commission ; nor had 
Beall opportunity to prove, as lie could have done under tlie 
usual facilities for obtaining evidence and preparing his defence, 
that when the train was stopped there was on board thereof the 
prisoners above mentioned, and that the want of time to make the 
obstruction effective was all that prevented an attack upon the 
guard and an attempt to release the prisoners ; this latter fact was 
contained in the certificate of Colonel Martin already alluded to. 

Thus, without counsel, and debarred from those opportunities 
for defence which before civil tribunals are allowed to those 
chargell with the highest crimes known to the law, was Beall 
being hurried to his pre-adjudged doom. At this Juncture James 
T. Brady, Esq., although not permitted by law to receive any 
compensation for his services, generously came forward and under- 
took the defence. Those who had long admired the intellect were 
now taught to appreciate with equal admiration the courage and 
generosity of James T. Brady. 'Tis something to be a great law- 
yer, but it is a much higher attribute to be a good man. 

On the 1st of February 1865, Beall was again brought before 
the Commission, arraigned and tried. Mr. Brady made an able 
defence upon the facts, which were proved substantially, as before 
related in this sketch. The charges were two : violating the laws 
of war by carrying on irregular and unlawful warfare as a guerilla, 
and acting as a spy. The Judge-Advocate admitted from the 
proofs that " Beall was a rebel officer, and that all he did was 
authorized by Mr. Davis." For his vindication in histoly, this 
admission, based upon the evidence, is perhaps all that it is neces- 
sary to publish. As to whether, under the technical rules of war, 
he was guilty of the charges preferred, it is scarcely worth while 
to consider. 

On the 8th of February, 1865, lie was found guilty of botii 
charges by the Commission, and condemned to death. On the 
14th General Dix approved their sentence, and ordered his execu- 
tion between the hours of 12 M. and 2 P. M., on the 18th of the 
same month (February, 1865). 

Accordingly, and with a view to his execution, lie was removed 



694 THE UNTVEESTTY MEMORIAL. [y^^mmry, 

from Fort Lafayette to Fort Columbus, the latter being situated 
on Governor's Island, immediately oif New York city. Here he 
was placed in a dungeon, narrow and gloomy, in the interior of 
the fort. Into this cell no gleam of God's sun had ever penetrated. 
A. little pine table was his escritoire. Papers were allowed to be 
brought him by the guard. Through the same channel he obtained 
writing material, Avhile his friends supplied him with books. 
Over all fell his only light from a solitary gas-burner. His 
health, we have seen, was delicate ; a suppurating wound is not a 
well of life, nor are Lafayette and Columbus very good hotels des 
invaUdes. 

It was only on the 13th of February that he was notified of the 
finding of the Commission. At what period, during the four days 
which General Dix allowed him to prepare for death, he was no- 
tified of the order for his execution, I am not informed, nor under 
what circumstances this announcement was made. It was accom- 
panied by a recommendation on the part of General Dix to the 
prisoner to make his will, and facilities were afforded accordingly. 
How he met the announcement has not been made public. We are 
at no loss, hovvever, to infer his bearing from the account given by 
Mr. Brady, who saw him on the eve before his intended execution. 
Mr. Brady declares in a letter now before me : — " I never before 
saw a human being whose composure in meeting his doom was 
equally perfect, while at the same time he displayed nothing of the 
bravo." 

There were not wanting friends to intervene in his behalf for 
the purpose of obtaining a reprieve or pardon. Conspicuous 
amono" these, two were most untiring and devoted, James A. L. 
McClure, Esq., and Albert Eitchie, Esq., of Baltimore. From 
the tiAie they learned of his capture and identification, until they 
laid him to rest in Greenwood Cemetery, these gentlemen spared 
neither money nor eifort, and shrank from no danger nor re- 
sponsibility in their endeavor to serve him. No stone was left 
unturned, and to the extent of a short respite for six days they 
were successful. Daring this interval every effort was brought 
to bear to influence the President, or General Dix, either of whom 
had the power to interpose, but all intercessions were in vain. 
For days before the execution the President closed the doors of 
the executive palace against all suppliants, male or female, and his 
ears against all appeals, whether with the tongue of men or of 



iSGj.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



G':l 



angels, in behalf of his unfortunate prisoner. From the first Mr. 
Lincoln had responded to all applications: "General Dix may 
dispose of the case as he pleases. I will not interfere." 

General Dix, on his part, replied : — ''All now rests with the 
President. As far as my action is concerned, there is not a gleam of 
hope ! " 

Thus they stood as the pillars of the gallows on which BEAiiL's 
fate was suspended, and between them ho died. 

At some period daring the respite spoken of, Mrs. Beall, having 
come on from Virginia, had an opportunity to visit her son. 
The character of their interview, which took place in the presence 
of officers, was naturally affecting, though both exhibited that 
degree of composed fortitude which might have been expected 
from their characters. The son derived from it great comfort, for, 
said he afterwards :^" I saw the moment she entered tlie cell that 
she could bear it, and that it made no difference to her whether I 
died upon the scaffold or fell upon the field." He gave her no 
ground to hope for final pardon for himself "No!" said he, 
" they are thirsting for my blood ! " And thus parted mother and 
son, to meet again only in that realm where the changed and 
spotless are clothed in the transcendent beauty of immortal and 
incorruptible spirits. 

Thus we find Beall in Fort Columbus, face to face witli his 
doom, all hope extinguished, every avenue of mercy or escape 
closed. His friends told him there was still a sligiit gleam of 
hope. He responded that he himself entertained none, nor would 
exchange, he declared, the penalty of death for the living deatii 
of perpetual or indefinite imprisonment ; he preferred an open 
grave to a vault. 

General Dix allowed his friends to visit him.freely. Ministers 
of his own Church brougiit him the holy unction of their message, 
and those of other denominations called on similar errands. The 
Rev. Joshua Van Dyke visited him on the day before his execu- 
tion, and writes : " I found him to be all that you had described 
him, and much more. He was confined in a narrow and gloomy 
cell, with a lamp burning at midday ; but he received me with as 
much ease as if he were in his own parlor, and liis conversation 
revealed at every turn the gentleman, the scholar and the Cin-is- 
tian. There was no bravado, no strained heroism, no excitement 
in his words or manner, but a f[uiet trust in God, and a composure 



696 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [February, 

in view of death such as I have read of but never beheld to the 
same degree before. He introduced the subject of his approaching 
end himself, saying that while lie did not pretend to be indifferent 
to life, the mode in wliich he was to leave it had no terrors or 
ignominy for him; he could go to heaven through the grace of 
Christ as well from the gallows as from tlio battle-field, or his 
own bed; he died in defence of what he believed to be right; 
and so far as the particular things for which lie was to be execu- 
ted were concerned, he had no confession to make or repentance 
to exercise. He did not use one bitter or angry expression towards 
his enemies, but calmly declared his conviction that he was to be 
executed contrary to the laws of civilized warfare. He accepted 
his doom as the will of God." 

Doctor Weston, chaplain of the 7th New York regiment, visited , 
him on the 18th of February, the day whence a respite deferred 
his execution to the 24th of the same month, and Beall received 
him "with marked courtesy." He found him provided with a 
Bible, but without a prayer-book. Yet, (as he tells us in his 
diary) as early as the 29tli of December, the doorman of the 
police headquarters had bought him "a Book of Common Prayer 
for $1.00." What then had become of it, that on the morning 
first appointed for his execution he had no prayer-book ? It is 
almost too sadly sacred to relate. He had sent it, a gift of life from 
the hands of death, to his betrothed ! 

His Bible had been obtained in prison ; upon opening it at 
random his eyes fell first upon these sublime verses : " For our 
light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far 
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at 
the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen : 
for the things which are seen are temporal, while tlie things whicli 
are not seen are eternal." He had written on the margin several 
hymns — old hymns, which stand in relation to the prayer-book 
collection as the essential oil to the remainder of the plant. 

His friend, Mr. Ritchie, visited him on Tliursday, the day pre- 
ceding his execution, which was fixed for Friday the 24th. 

The jailor. Major Coggswell, U. S. A., exacted a promise that 
he would not furnish the condemned man with any instrument by 
which he could take his own life. Mr. Ritcliie related this promise 
to Beall, who replied (throwing liis left foot over his knee, 
and tapping it with his finger), " In my left shoe here I have had 



18iiB.J 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 697 



all the time a little steel saw, with which I could have opened a 
vein at any moment, had I wished to do so, and I should like you 
to remind me of it in the mornino-." 

This little saw, made of a steel watch-spring, and which was 
found on experiment to go through iron with rapidity and ease, 
was cut from between the double upper-leathers of his shoe after 
his death ; indeed, two of them were so found. 

The morning of the 24th of February opened fairly. Mr. 
Ritchie had spent the preceding night in the fort, and until mid- 
night had remained in the cell with Beall. On Wednesday 
night he had slept soundly, and happy dreams of home and child- 
hood had visited him. But on Thursday night the tooth-ache, to 
which he was subject, and with which he was suffering when ar- 
rested, attacked him again, and to some extent robbed him of his 
last night on earth. He would Iiave liked some laudanum, he 
said, to still the pain, but declined to ask for it for fear of being 
misunderstood. Nothing, however, disturbed the tranquillity of 
his soul. 

The execution was ordered between twelve and two. Messrs. 
McClure and Ritchie were left in the cell with the prisoner alone 
uninterruptedly for about an hour. This time was spent in calm, 
quiet, pleasant conversation. Old friends were inquired after, old 
scenes recalled, and the circumstances connected with his own par- 
ticipation in the raid on Lake Erie, and on the Dunkirk and 
Buffalo railway, gone over. He spoke of his approaching death, 
and gave directions for the disposition of his body. He dictated 
his own epitaph, which was to be: — ''Died in defence of his 
country." 

As the hour waned, McClure looked, at his watch. Beall 
noticed the movement, smiled, and inquired t^\e hour. It was 
twelve o'clock. The execution, by the order, was to take place 
between twelve and two. His voyage was, therefore, drawing 
rapidly to a close. The sails could be seen in heaven coming up 
from the under-world. Destiny was making the last entry in the 
log-book of life. The harbor and the steeples of the city were in 
sight. 

Very soon Major Coggswell came in to bid his prisoner farewell. 
This officer himself had once been lield in Richmond as a hostage, 
with the sword of Damocles above him, and he could, therefore, 
sympathize with a soldier under similarly trying circumstances. 



698 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. [February. 

Like all around him, also, he had been drawn into thelmagnetic 
circle of Beall's friendship. 

After partaking of some nourishment, which Dr. Weston and 
Mr. McClure shared with him, Beall was left alone with his 
spiritual adviser. After him, the officers of the law entered to 
make the customary preparations. While the officers were per- 
forming their mournful duty, Beael addressed them: — " All I 
ask," said he, " is that there be no unnecessary consumption of 
time in the execution ; for, after all, it will be to me but a mere 
muscular effi3rt." 

His friends returned to find him hooded, and a black mantle 
thrown over his shoulders. Mr. McClure, not observing that his 
hands were fastened behind him, offijred his hand. "I cannot 
shake hands," said he, smiling; '' I am pinioned." 

He had dressed himself upon this morning Avith unusual neat- 
ness. His linen Avas white and clean, and his black silk cravat 
was gracefully tied beneath a rolling collar. He wore a new pair 
of dog-skin gloves of saffron color. Just the extremities of his 
fingers protruded from the blue military cloth cape thrown over 
his shoulders, which entirely concealed the manacles on his wrists, 
and the noose about his neck. Upon his head was placed the 
fatal cap, the blackness of which heightened by contrast the white- 
ness of the martyr-face beneath it. This face, naturally colorless, 
was blanched by long and solitary confinement. It was smooth, 
Avhite, and almost transparently clear. The eyes, Avhose dulness 
or suffusion always betrays weeping, nervous agitation, or a sleep- 
less night, were as clear, bright, and calm as an infant's. As he 
stepped from the threshold of his cell they began to beam, until 
they shone with an unusual and unearthly splendor. 

As he passed out, he turned to Messrs. McClure and Ritchie 
and said: — "Good-bye, boys; I die in the hope of a resurrection, 
and in defence of my country ! " 

The gallows was erected on a gentle slope at the lower extremity 
of Governo,r's Island, facing to the south, within one hundred 
yards of the sea. It was a contribution from the civil authorities. 
On it they had executed a negro (Hawkins) for murder, a Yankee 
slave-trader (Gordon), and a pirate (Hicks). There was no drop, 
but a chair was placed directly under the rope, which ran through 
an aperture, and along a groove or series of pulleys in the beam 
above ; the other end falling into a rude box, or shanty, where it 



lwi5.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 699 

had connection with a heavy weight, which by the severance of a 
subordinate line would bring the noose up with a swift jerk to the 
top of the gallows-tree. Up and down in tlie interior of the en- 
closure containing the weight, paced the man whose business it 
was to cut the short line supporting it at the signal. This execu- 
tioner himself was no ordinary Abhorson. He was (it is stated) 
a deserter, long confined on the Island, whose pardon was promised 
as a reward for the faithful discharge of the hangman's office. It 
is to portray the temper of the times that history demands these 
details. 

At a little past one o'clock the cortege passed out of tlie arched 
sallyport of Fort Columbus. Beall's fellow-prisoners were 
ordered to their cells, and the doors of the Fort were closed. The 
band struck up the death-march, and the solemn procession moved 
forward.. Beall caught the step of the regulars, and moved with 
them. He was a soldier, and knew how to keep step even to the 
music of his own death-dirge; but his step was lighter than that 
of the heavy soldiery. Suddenly, upon a little eminence over- 
looking the spot and instrument of execution, the procession 
calls a halt. What does it mean? The victim's face is turned 
full upon the gallows, and upon the rough pine coffin at its 
foot. " Oh, this is cruel and cowardly ! " exclaims one of his 
two faithful friends who are following afar off. Beall mieht 
avert his face; Init he is a soldier, and will not do it. For nine 
solid minutes, by the Avatch, he is kept face to face with the gallows, 
and tete-a-tete with his own coffin. He had asked only that there 
might be no unnecessary delay. Here is an unexjilained, an appa- 
rently causeless, a possibly wanton delay. For a single instant the 
thought sinks into his heart, and the waters from the fountains of 
bitterness well up to his face. The expression is so transient, how- 
ever, that it escapes the priest and all the rejsorters ; only the friend 
who knows him so well detects it. There is no discomposure, no 
blenching, no dismay, no revived hope of life, no relaxation of 
indifference to death, depicted in this brief change of expression. 
After the first moment that this unaccountable and unaccounted 
for suspense lasts, the face of the victim, upon which the sea- 
breeze plays, is serene and peaceful. The multitude, who, to 
the number of from three hundred and fifty to five hundred, had 
assembled to witness the execution, are ap])alled at this delay; but 
now Beall himself no longer regards it. He does not see the 



700 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. [February, 

crowd around him. ' Once or twice he has smiled at their eao;er 
curiosity ; now he no longer regards them at all. He asks the 
direction of Fort Lafayette, and remarks that he has many kind 
friends there. He looks smilingly over the gibbet across the 
Avaters of the bay to the hills of Staten Island, and the mountains 
of New Jersey beyond; thence to the soft blue sky on which they 
are projected ; and finally, up to the glorious god of day himself. 
Then he exclaims : — " How beautiful the sun is ! I look upon it 
for the last time ! " 

Again the march is resumed, and the victim passes into the 
hollow square around the scaffold. Before stepping upon it, he 
turns with a smile to Dr. Weston, and remarks : — " As some 
author has said, we may be as near God on the scaffold as else- 
where. He may be thinking of the sainted Abbot of Aquila, 
"who wished to be buried under a gallows, and it was done." 

Mounting to the platform, the prisoner takes his seat upon the 
chair immediately under the fatal rope. The Adjutant of the post 
commences to read the charges, specifications, and the orders of 
General Dix for his execution. Beall, little dreaming of the 
test to which he is to be subjected, rises respectfully when the 
reading is commenced. But finding that, instead of the last and 
briefest order for his execution, the whole prolix and unsoldierly 
pronunciamento of General Dix is to be gone through with, he 
deliberately draws up a chair with his foot, and resumes his seat. 
When he hears himself designated as a citizen of the " Insur- 
gent State of Virginia," his smile grows intensely sad and sig- 
nificant. He sees now the men before him no longer as his own 
executioners only, but as the executioners of a sovereign State — 
his own beloved Virginia; and he smiles not in derision, but in 
protest and remonstrance. At the point where the General de- 
nounces his heroic attempt to rescue three thousand fellow-soldiers 
as " piracy," he again smiles ; but when he is accused as a 
" guerilla," of attempting " to destroy the lives and property of 
peaceable and unoffending inhabitants," he mournfully shakes his 
head in denial. Finally, when the Adjutant reaches the concluding 
passage of the order in which General Dix descants thus : — " The 
Major-General commanding feels that a want of firmness and in- 
flexibility on his part, in executing the sentence of death in such 
a case, would be an offence against the outraged civilization and 
humanity of the age," the reporters declare that "the prisoner 



1865] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 701 



seems to be reminded of some amusing incident in liis military 
experience." The truth is, Beall hears in the hy})ocritical cant 
of General Dix that officer's self-condemnation, and knows that 
every breath which the commanding General draws is in default 
of the penalty which he himself attaches to the violation of the 
laws of civilized warfare. Even the executioner grows impatient, 
and cannot endure this ordeal : — " Cut it short ! Cut it short ! '' 
cries he, "the Captain wishes to be swung off quick!" The 
crowd murmurs, and the reporters call his eagerness to perform 
his office " brutality." They mistake — he means it in kindness. 

Tiie reading over, Beall promptly rises and announces his 
readiness. Then reverently turning to Dr. AVeston, he bows his 
head, while over him falls from the lips of the minister, like a 
spotless mantle, the benediction of the Church's ritual; — "The 
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellow- 
ship of the Holy Spirit, be with you and sustain you ! " 

His manner throughout has been one of respectful attention. 
But when he mounts the scaffold, and sits down under the fatal 
coil, he turns his back upon the Adjutant while he is reading, and 
faces in the opposite direction. This attitude he does not change. 
What does it mean ? His face is turned upon his own beloved 
South. Far over waters, mountains, valleys, and intervening 
hills, through the deep azure sky travel his thoughts to the land 
of chivalrous deeds and political ideas, which, rightly understood, 
gather in their scope the eternal years of God's own truth, and 
for which no man should hesitate to die. As the martyr sets his 
face towards Jerusalem, so this hero, dying for the faith of his 
fathers, turns his face upon the South. Thus he faces when the 
last duty save that of the executioner is performed. The provost- 
marshal asks him whether he has anything to say. Turning upon 
the officer of the day, he speaks in a calm, firm voice : "I protest 
against the execution of this sentence. It is a murder ! I die in 
the service and defence of my country ! I have nothing more to 
say." 

A moment after a sword-flash is seen behind him, which is 
the signal to the executioner, and the hero's soul is free. 

Thus died in the thirty-first year of his age, on the scaffold, 
John Yates Beall. 

His body, after death, was given to his two faithful friends, 
whose devotion had halted at no sacrifice in their efforts to save 



702 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [February, ' 

his life, and they laid it privately to rest in Greenwood Cemetery, 
near New York city. 

His death-scene, as described not alone by his friends who were 
present, and ])y the letters to his family and myself of James T, 
Brady, Esq., and Dr. Weston, but as reported by his enemies, 
was one of the sublimest spectacles in history. It exhibited 
courage without bravado, tenderness without weakness, resigna- 
tion without stoicism, a protest against what he considered a 
murder Avithout resentment against the murderers. It united to 
ease dignity; to manliness a sense of responsibility ; composure to 
freedom. It combined at once firmness, self-possession, inflexibil- 
ity, patience, intellectuality, fortitude, and cheerfulness. It was 
all that his friends could hope, or Christianity demand ; all that 
his country could be proud of in chivalry, or his enemies dread in 
the example of martyrdom. 



A. RUSSELL MEEM, 

Post-Surgeon, Mount Jackson, Virginia. 

Dr. Andrew Russell Meem, eldest son of John G. and Eliza 
C. Meem, of Lynchburg, was born in Abingdon, Virginia, on the 
27th of June, 1821, and was related through his mother to some 
of the oldest and most distinguished families, one of whom, the 
Campbells of West Virginia, were lineal descendants of the noble 
English house of that name. 

In 1837 young Meem was sent to the University of Virginia, 
where he remained over a year ; thence proceeding to Princeton 
College, New Jersey, where he graduated with distinction ; after- 
wards attending the Jefferson Medical School, in Philadelphia, 
and receiving in '44 the degree of M. D. In the spring follow- 
ing he was united in marriage to Ann, daughter of Gabriel Jordan, 
of Page county, Virginia, and subsequently repaired to his father's 
estate in Shenandoah, where he practised his profession successfully, 
and presided as the hospitable and genial host, until called to 
sterner duties by the harsh necessities of war. 

In July '56 he was tendered the appointment of Surgeon on 
board the clipper Ocean Foam, destined to ply betM'een the East 



1SG5.] THE UNIVPJRSITY MP^MORIAL. 703 

Indies and New York, with the inducement of a larger salary and 
flattering advantages; but as it was expected to remain on cruise 
thirty months, lie declined, on account of the delicate health of 
his mother. In 'oG and '57 he was appointed by Governor Wise 
a member of the Board of Visitors to the Virginia Military In- 
stitute, and also Proxy of the Manassas Gap Eailroad, of which 
he was afterwards made Director. In 'GO he was again appointed 
by Governor Letcher, Visitor of the Virginia Military Institute; 
and in the spring and summer of 'Gl was engaged in recruiting 
for the Wise Legion, until commissioned full Surgeon in the Pro- 
visional Army of the Confederate States, and ordered to take 
charge of the general hospital then under construction at Mount 
Jackson, in close vicinity to liis home. 

On the advance of Banks's army up the Valley, however, this 
post was abandoned, and the sick removed to East Virginia. Dr. 
Meem was then ordered to take charge of two hospitals in Lynch- 
burg, where he remained until October 'G3, Avhcn it v/as decided 
to re-open those at Mount Jackson. This enabled him to spend 
the winter near his family ; but on the advance of the Federals 
in the spring following, he again removed his sick, and established 
his headquarters at Harrisonburg, in Ilockingham county. The 
change was but temporary. In '64 he was again transferred to 
Mount Jackson, and again compelled to close the hospital on the 
occasion of Sheridan's advance up the Valley. It was not long 
after his second return to Harrisonburg that he was seized with 
an alarming attack of gastritis, from which he expired on the 26th 
day of February, 1865, after four days of intense and unmitigated 
suffering. 

The rapid advance of the Federals at this time made it impos- 
sible for his fimily to hear of his illness or be present at his 
death. His remains were therefore taken in charge by the Masons 
(of which body he was a Royal Arch), and temporarily interred in 
the little ccmctei-y near the town, in November following, the 
body was removed and jjlaced by the side of his mother in the 
Presbyterian Cemetery at Lynchburg. 

Dr. ]\Ieem was a man of striking and splendid physique; of 
fine, athletic proportions, and great muscular strength. He was 
fond of our-door sports, and ])articularly the chase, in which he 
excelled, evincing always great skill and prowess. The writer 
has seen the halls of Mount Airy hung with antlers, the trophies 



7<-'4: THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [March, 

of a clay's sport in the mountains. He was likewise devoted to 
music and flowers, cultivating both with assiduous care. No 
warbling bird could raise its morning song or evening carol at his 
window that he did not pause to drink in the melody, and we 
have seen him stoop to study the lowliest flower that lifted its 
dewy head in his pathway. Indeed, his rare and varied accom- 
plishments of mind, his handsome person, his kind, genial, sunny 
nature which seemed to reach out to all mankind, made him at 
once the pride and delight of the drawing-room circle, and alas ! 
the very idol of those dearest to his heart, in the far more privileged 
circle of home. 

Dark and desolate indeed became that home when on a dreary, 
wintry night, through storm and darkness, came the kind and 
friendly messenger who bore to his wife and children the fearful 
news of his death. Unexpected indeed was the blow to those who 
had parted with him but a few days previous in all the vigor of 
manly strength and glowing health. He went down to the grave 
beloved and lamented by all who knew him, and by none more 
than the sick and wounded soldiers Avho had been the objects of 
his professional care. Of the latter, they who yet survive will 
doubtless carry through life most grateful and tender recollections 
of the prompt and unwearied attention, the earnest sympathy and 
the thoughtful kindness of their devoted Surgeon, Andrew Rus- 
sell. Meem. 

He fell not as so many fell, 

'Mid llie rude sound of shot and shell; 

Yet uobly at his post as well. 

Aye, uobly laid his brave heart down, 

Where grateful lips his worth might own — 

Their tender praise his spirit's crown. 



^RATZ COHEN, 

Volunteer Aide to Acting Brigadier-General, G. P. Harrison. 

Geatz Cohen, the only son of Hon. Solomon Cohen and 
Miriam Gratz Cohen, was born in the city of Savannah, Georgia, 
November 3d, 1814. His childhood was cloudless and happy, 
and his gentle nature, calm temper, brilliant intellect and studious 





""/Z^^f^^^ 



iSCo.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 705 

habits, gave early promise of a future honorable to himself and 
useful to his fellows. 

lie Mas well grounded in the English, French, German, and 
Latin languages, but tlie coming war called him from his studies 
before he had reached seventeen years of age. Early in June 
1861, at his earnest entreaties, his parents permitted him to enter 
the Savannah Artillery as a private, and in that capacity he served 
for three months; and, boy as he was, he performed faithfully every 
duty of the common soldier, winning the love and respect of his 
comrades by his gentleness and intelligence, and the approval of 
his officers by his fidelity and zeal. At this time the State of 
Georgia raised two brigades for the defence of the seaboard, and 
Gratz was appointed Aide, M'ith rank of Captain, on the staif of 
General George P. Harrison, commanding a brigade of State 
troops. This position he held for eight months, when he was in- 
capacitated for further service by '"'a deep-seated inflammation in 
the ligatures of both feet." 

He was then sent to the Georgia Military Academy; but had to 
leave after a short stay, from inability to perform the drill and 
other duties of a cadet. In October, 1862, he entered the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, and remained there the whole of that and the 
greater part of the next session, when, on the advice of his physi- 
cian, he returned home, and devoted himself to literary pursuits, 
which he dearly loved, and the study of the law under the tuition 
of his father. 

His stay at the University was rendered peculiarly agreeable 
from the hospitality of the citizens of the community, and from 
the love and respect of his Professors and fellow-students. He 
was elected President of the Jefferson Society by a unanimous 
vote; and during his second session he Avas apppinted to deliver 
an address to those students who, having reached eighteen, were 
called to leave the quiet shades of their Alma Mater for the 
sterner duties of the battle-field. The address was in poetry, and 
is as follows, he being then oidy nineteen : — 

A7i Address to certain students of the University of Virf/inia who tcere about to 
depart for the uriny, hy CJuatz Cohen, a student of the University ; written at 
the request of his fellow-students : — 

Go wlu-re glory waits 5-011. 'Twas thus the poet said ; 
Tlio ciy is cciioc'd l);ick to us in voices of tlu; dead : 
" Go, I'or your soMicr brotlic-rs need you at tlicir side ; 
Go, tight as we Lave I'ouirlit aud die as wo have died." 

45 



706 THE UFIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. [March 

If need there be, a thousand deaths were better than disgrace; 
Better that every man should die than live a conquered race; 
Better a grave on tlie battle-field, a martyred hero's fame, 
Than all the acres in the land a legacy of shame. 

Go where duty calls you. 'Tis written with the blood 
Of brothers, friends and kinsmen, tlie noble and the good, 
On every field of battle and on every mourner's heart : 
If ye be men and Southrons, shall another do your part ? 

Another fight for your sisters, your mothers, sweethearts, wives? 
Are peace and safety to be bought with hired soldiers' lives ? 
Turn then tlie leaves of history, learn the lessons they unfold. 
That blessings, such as these we seek, cannot be gained with gold. 

Go where our noble soldiers stem the invading tide ; 
Go where Right opposes Might, where justice strives with pride; 
Go where your country needs you, where the foe is ten to one : 
The Lord of Hosts will lead you through whom all things are done. 

The race is neither to the swift nor the battle to the strong. 
For God doth give the victory and right o'ercomes the wrong; 
Then cast ye off all selfishness, show yonr worthiness to Gocl, 
Aad choose the dangers of the fight before the conqueror's rod. 

Holy and tender memories call ye : Go. 

Who has not lost some friend in childhood loved. 
Some brave and generous youth too soon laid low, 

Whose fate untimely has our anguish moved ? 

Who hath not had the chains of friendship riven. 

And many of its links forever lost V — 
Or rather we may say transferred to Heaven, 

Wliere Jackson's leader of the martyr-host. 

Who that is brave or true that does not feel 
That such as these, whose earthly work is done. 

To every Souliieru heart do still appeal, — 

"Fight on, fight on, until the victory's won"? 

Have Bartow, Bee, and Johnston died in vain ? 

Shall Shiloh and Manassas yield no fruit ? 
Must we submit to Yankee rule again. 

And blast the tree of Freedom, branch and root. 

Which we have watered with most precious blood ; 

Beueath whose shade the bones of heroes lie — 
Of heroes, who around the tree have stood, 

And did not fear in its defence to die ? 

Norfolk and New Orleans teach a warning : 

Belter the land should be one common grave, 
Thau we the objects of the Yankees' scorning — 

The shackled subjects of the negro slave. 

All that we prize on earth or hope in Heaven 

Inspires us to hasten to the fight. 
Nor stop until the peace we seek is given. 

And Victory yields her laurels to the right. 



1S65.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 707 



In the summer of 1864 he wrote a work of fiction entitled 
"Edith Brandon," which, after being approved by the literary 
critic of the publishing-house of Evans & Coggswell, of Columbia, 
South Carolina, was in their hands for publication on most favor- 
able terms; but it was burned when Sherman, with wanton bar- 
barity, destroyed that beautiful city. 

In November 1864, he reached his twentieth year, and in the 
following month, on the approach of Sherman to Savannah, he 
determined again to enter the army. When remonstrated with, 
and reminded of his physical inability and sufferings, he replied, 
" The enemy have invaded my home, and I must aid in its 
defence. If I can't stand, I will kneel and fire my rifle." 

He left Savannah as volunteer Aide — without pay — on the 
staff of Colonel P. G. Harrison, Jr., acting Brigadier-General ; 
endured the fatigues, privations, and dangers of that fearful march 
from the Savannah river to North Carolina, often sleeping on the 
ground with a single blanket ; and, though racked by torturing 
pains, he uttered no word of complaint. Stern men have often 
told the writer of this memoir that Gratz Cohen was ever ready 
in the hour of danger and trial, that he always had a word of en- 
couragement for the weary and sick, and that in skirmish and 
battle he sought the post of danger and urged others to follow. 

His letters during that period of trial and suffering were full 
of hope — of pious and trustful hope in God, and resignation to 
His will ; be it (in his own language) a peaceful home or a dismal 
tomb. He displayed an early piety, a love of God, and a delight 
in His holy Word. 

At the battle of Averysboro' he received from the commander 
of another brigade a warm and public commendation on the field 
for his gallantry and cool bravery. 

The battle of Bentonville, North Carolina, was fought on the 
19th of ISIarch, 1865, between Sherman's army and that small 
and haggard but gallant band under Joseph E. Johnston. 

" You are too sick, Mr. Cohen ; you cannot endure the fatigue 
of this battle," said the Surgeon of the division. 

" Let me share the danger and the glory of this fight, and I 
Avill follow your advice always afterwards," was the reply. 

In the afternoon of that day young Cohen was sent by his 
General to another part of the field to see and report the progress 
of the battle. He performed the duty, returned to his commander, 



708 THE UNIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[March, 



and, with a pleasant smile on his face, reported that the enemy 
were retreating. He had just finished his report when he Avas 
instantly killed by a bullet through his head, the smile resting on 
his beautiful face even in death. 

Thus foil one of the noblest spirits Avho have sanctified the lost 
cause of Southern Independence. 

Two friends buried him on the farm of Mr. Benton, near the 
battle-field; and in February, 1866, the remains were removed and 
interred in Laurel Grove Cemetery, near Savannah, flis parents 
have recently erected a chaste and beautiful monument " To our 
only and beloved son." 



GEOEGE TUCKER RIVES, 

Captain, Company I, 46tli Virginia Infantry. 

" The roll of Virginia's dead, which a war of four years' duration 
has recorded, is indeed fearfully long, and embraces the names of 
her best and bravest children, her choicest treasures. But in the 
whole list no name M'ill be found which recalls nobler qualities 
and excites more cherished memories in the hearts of friends, 
relatives and acquaintances, than the name of Tucker Rrviis." 
Such M'-as the testimony to the worth of this young officer, given 
at the tiuie of his death by one who knew him intimately from 
his childhood until that fatal day. 

George Tucker Rives, son of George and Maria F. Rives, of 
Albemarle county, Virginia, was born February 15th, 1843. The 
commencement of tlie war found him in his second session at the 
University as a student in the academic course, and in t!ie junior 
Class of Law. Sympathizing in the feeling then prevalent, he 
abandoned his studies in the spring of 1861, and, then just eighteen 
years of age, went to the neighborhood of his home to aid in 
raising a company for the field. This done, at its organization 
Roberts Coles was elected Captain, Dr. Lewis Randolph 1st Lieu- 
tenant, and G. Tuckp:r Rives 2d Lieutenant. In July, the 
company, numbering ninety-nine men, joined General Wise at the 
White Sulphur S^^rings, and was assigned to the 46th Virginia 
Infantry, - - 



18(15. 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 709 



The sickness and mortality of that western campaign will not 
soon he forgotten : among the victims of disease was Lientenant 
Rives. While the Wise brigade was on Sewell IMountain ho 
was stricken down with typhoid fever. He had been for several 
days suffering with premonitory symptoms, such as general lan- 
guor and violent headache; but he still answered to the roll-call. 
Just at this time he was made officer of the day, and though his 
indisposition was increasing, and a heavy rain Avas falling, he 
performed his rounds. The next morning he Avas so ill as not to 
be able to walk without assistance. To this too close adherence 
to principle may be traced in some degree the virulence of his 
attack. After six or seven weeks of almost constant delirium, 
during which time he was nursed most tenderly by his parents 
and a faithful servant, he w-as restored to partial convalescence. 
In December our armies withdrew from the country, leaving it 
open to the incursions of the enemy, and his removal was necessi- 
tated. He was brought home feeble as a child, and did not 
recover his strength until spring. 

Meanwhile his company had passed through the disaster of 
Roanoke Island, in which Captain Coles was killed and the 
officers and men made prisoners. In the spring of '62 tlie com- 
pany was declared exchanged, and Lieutenant Randolph having 
been appointed surgeon. Lieutenant Rives was at the reorganiza- 
tion unanimously elected Captain. From that time he was almost 
constantly with his command, sharing its fortunes until the attack 
of Butler on our lines near Petersburg in Juno 18G4, when he was 
shot through the thigh and disabled for several months. In 
October his wound healed, he rejoined his company, and continued 
with it until the 29th of March 18G5, when he fell gallantly 
leading his men in the attack of Wise's brigade upon the enemy 
near Burgess' Mill, about eight miles southward from Petersburg. 
y In that attack our soldiers had pierced two lines of the enemy 
when they came suddenly upon a third column, hitherto masked 
by those in their front. At this moment the stoutest hearts began 
to fall and our line to falter; Captain Rives sprang forward 
instantly and endeavored to inspirit Ids command. Simulta- 
neously th(5 enemy opened a terrific fire, and he fell forward on his 
face shot tiirough the heart. 

Tiie enemy retained possession of the field. Two of Captain 
Rives' men sought, in retiring, to carry him oil", but luund upon 



710 THE UIS'IVEKSITY MEMORIAL. [:,:arch, 

examination that life was extinct, and left the brave yonng man 
to sleep on the field of his glory. Two efforts of his family to 
recover his remains proved unsuccessful. 

Though high-toned in all his feelings and principles, Tucker 
Rives was uot demonstrative, nor given to self-assertion. He 
was peculiarly manly and self-poised for a youth of his age, yet 
averse to excitement. He was possessed of a quiet, uiiinipassioned 
courage, however, which discovered itself on all proper occasions. 
AThile at Colleire a fellow-student took offence at something: he 
said in a friendly conversation ; he at once disavowed the con- 
struction placed upon his remark, and for a time endeavored to 
pacify the gentleman ; but finding that peace Avas not to be restored 
thus, he demanded that the party should have his satisfaction at 
once, and stepping into the street with the coolness of manner 
which always distinguished him, bade him "come on." Thus 
ended a quarrel which might have seriously interrupted their 
studies. Swayed by his judgment, and loving moderation and 
justice, he was early distinguished by his talents for command. 
In danger he was fearless and remarkably self-possessed, showing 
the same collected bearing as on ordinary occasions. The sense of 
duty was always a ruling motive with him ; and without making 
obtrusive professions of patriotism, it is interesting to observe how 
constant he was to its dictates. He never asked for a furlough 
but once, and then at a time of inactivity ; besides this time he 
Avas never absent from his command, except on the two occasions 
referred to, when on " hospital leave." He was often urged to 
get a position of less danger than in the infantry, but he gave no 
heed to the suo-o-estion. In the winters of '64 and 'G5 his friends 
were more pressing, and these changes were being sought by many 
around him. He condemned the practice and deplored thedemor- 
alization from which he foresaw the worst results, and determined 
neither to countenance the one nor contribute to the other. At 
the close of the winter of '65 it was observed by his friends that 
his hcaltli Avas greatly impaired by his experience in the trenches, 
and he was urged to get a sick-furlough ; but anticipating the 
crisis, he refused to leave his post. 

Beloved by the men, he held also a high j^lace in t'he respect 
and confidence of the officers of his brigade. In a meeting of the 
officers of the 46th and 34th regiments, held for the purpose of 
securing the transfer of General Wise from the command of the 



1S05. 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 711 



"First Military District, Department of North Ciirolina and 
Southern Virginia/' to his old brigade, Captain Rives was made 
chairman, and as such conducted the correspondence. Another 
instance of official confidence and respect is furnished by the fol- 
lowing incident: — AVhile the brigade was in South Carolina, a 
member of Captain Hives' com[)any deserted to the enoniy, and 
charges were preferred against another member for aiding and 
abetting the desertion, and intending himself to desert upon the 
first opportunity. The testimony was direct and positive, and 
Captain Rives was at first tlioroughly convinced. But before the 
meeting of the court-martial he pondered the charges, and then, 
appearing before the court, stated that while he admitted the force 
of the evidence, and though he had nothing to oppose to it, he 
was nevertheless pursuaded in his own mind that the prisoner was 
innocent, and thought he could give assurance for his conduct in 
the future if released. To Tucker Rives' impressions more was 
yielded than was warranted by the testimony; but the soldier, re- 
mitted to his duty, was faithful even to the end of the war. 

The following tribute is from the pen of Major James C. Hill, 
who, serving in the same regiment, was permanently disabled in 
the battle of June 17th, 18G4, where Captain Rives also was 
wounded as already mentioned : — 

"SCOTSVILLE, YiEGIXIA, iip7'il 12ih, '69. 

" George Rives, Esq. 

" 3Iy Dear Sir : — . . . Let me assure you that no one who 
served with your lamented son, bears testimony to his worth and 
gallantry with more pleasure tiian myself. 

"In July, 1861, Company I was' assigned to tlie 46th Regi- 
ment Virginia Volunteers. With this date my acquaintance with 
Captain RiVES began. As a 2d Lieutenant, no opportunity was 
offered to bring prominently to the notice of his associates the rare 
talent of controlling men, and at the same time gaining their affec- 
tions, which he in a wider field so conspicuously evinced. In 
West Virginia he discharged all his duties with alacrity and rigid 
fidelity. Stricken down by disease, he left tlie army for several 
months. In the interim the affair at Roanoke Island occurred, 
his company losing the gallant, the chivalrous Coles. He rejoined 
us at Yorktown; and in the month of May 1862, was elected Cap- 



712 THE UKIVEKSITY MEMOEIAL. 



[April, 



tain of his company. From this date we were together without 
interruption until the 17th June, 1864. I saw him under all cir- 
cumstances, and knew him thoroughly. As a company commander 
he was kind but firm and unyielding in discipline, securing the 
affection and respect of his men, carefully looking after their com- 
fort, and demandino; for them all their rig-lits. He was one of the 
best administrative officers I knew. I served with him on courts- 
martial, etc., and always found him avcU informed as to the regu- 
lations of the service. In action, he was cool; exhibiting the 
highest type of courage, calmly discharging liis duty under the 
most terrifie fire, and observing with tlie closest scrutiny the con- 
duct of his men. 

" We marched, suffered, and fought together; and it is the ver- 
dict of my judgment as well as of my lieart, that in the great host 
of Confederate dead no one served our cause with more fidelity 
and gallantry than my friend, your noble son. 

"With the highest respect, your obedient servant, 

"James C. Hill." 



WILLIAM H. COCKE, 

Assistant Surgeon, 14tli Virginia Infantry. 

Dr. William Henry Cocke, son of John Cocke, Esq., of 
Portsmouth, Virginia, was born in that city, Mai'cli 5th, 1832. 
As a boy he was known by the sobriquet of " Buck," and the 
name attached to him as long as he lived : the flict is mentioned 
that his friends who may read this sketch may the more readily 
recognize the man. In his infancy he was a child of suffering, 
having received an injury in one of his ankles, which after sevei'al 
years of pain and confinement resulted in lameness; this, how- 
ever, proved to be only temporary. During this trying period he 
displayed a patience and fortitude which indicated clearly what he 
would be in maturer life. As he advanced to manhood and his 
character became more fully developed, he evinced those noble 
traits which made him so beloved by all who knew him. 

Reared and educated by an indulgent father, who was at that 
time able to furnish him with all the advantatres of the best 



ls65.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 713 



schools, and possessed of more than ordinary intelligence, Buck 
Cocke Avas sent to the University of Virginia in 1849, and re- 
mained there daring three consecutive sessions. As he designed to 
devote himself to the profession of medicine, his studies were 
directed to that end. He subsequently attended the University 
of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in medicine in 1853. This 
done, he returned to Portsmouth and began the practice of his 
profession. 

He had not long to wait for an opportunity to test his abilities 
as a piiysician and his courage as a man. Tiie summer of 1855 
will long be remembered by the people of Norfolk and Ports- 
mouth, for then appeared that most terrible scourge that ever 
afflicted this continent, yellow fever. No tongue can describe the 
consternation which prevailed among the inhabitants of "the twin 
cities" : all who could, fled for safety, for it was counted madness 
to remain. Dr. Cocke found no difficulty in determining what 
course he should pursue : he had chosen a noble, self-sacrificn'ng 
profession, and he took care that no reproach should attach to it 
by any such act as deserting his post in time of danger. Through 
the long summer he went about ministering to the sick, careless 
of his own comfort and regardless of his own safety. At last he 
was stricken down with the fever, and was conveyed to the United 
States Nav^al Hospital, which had been generously appropriated to 
the use of the sufferers by Mr. Dobbin, then Secretary of the Navy. 
There, under the kind and skilful treatment of Dr. L. W. Minor, 
surgeon in charge, and his efficient associates, he was restored to 
health and usefulness. 

After that time Dr. Cocke continued quietly to practise his 
profession until the breaking out of the war. Being politically of 
the States' Rights School, true to the instincts of duty which had 
influenced him during the prevalence of yellow fever, he promptly 
attached himself as a private to a volunteer company raised in his 
jiative city, determined to maintain with his life, if need bo, the 
cause which he had advocated, and which he believed to be a just 
one. 

In 1862, when the evacuation of Portsmouth took place, he 
followed tlio Confederate army to Richmond, and j)articipated in 
several engagements. After returning with his command from 
the campaign into Maryland, he was appointed Assistant-Surgeon, 
and assigned to duty with the l-ltli Virginia Infantry. This office 
he held with credit to himself until his death. 



714 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[April, 



It was practically at the close of the war when the battle of 
Five Forks occurred, and Dr. Cocke had done a soldier's duty 
dux'ing the entire jDeriod of its continuance. On the bloody field 
just mentioned, while attending to his wounded men, he was 
himself wounded and captured, and sent to Lincoln Hospital, 
Washington, D. C, where he died of his wounds, April 25ih, 
1865. 

Thus briefly and imperfectly Jiave we sketched the life of one 
whom nature had prodigally adorned whith her choicest gifts. 
Brave and kind, genial in his sympathies and generous to a fault, 
he lived but to endear himself to all. He lived to witness his 
country's overthrow, but escaped the persecutions and the shame 
that followed : they who mourn his death are comforted by this 
reflection. 



WILLIAM JOHNSTON PEGRAM, 

Colonel of Artillery, 3ci Corps, Army of Northern Virginia. 

The life of William Johnston Pegram affords a notable ex- 
ample of how great a career may be crowded within the compass 
of few years. In the spring of 'Gl he entered the military ser- 
vice as a private soldier; in the spring of '65, still a mere lad, he 
fell in action. Colonel of Artillery, mourned by an army. 

Of that career it is difficult to speak worthily witliin the limits 
of a brief memoir. For four years it was his fortune to bear no 
small jiart in all the great actions of the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia. More than once, in desperate and critical events, Avere 
grave trusts confided to his prudence, skill, and courage. Thus, 
to speak soberly, the history of that career is the history of the 
army to which he belonged. 

But it is still more diflicult to speak temperately of a character 
so finely tempered by stern and gentle virtues that it were liard to 
determine whether his consummate valor won more admiration 
than his inimitable sweetness of disposition did the affection of 
friends and comrades. 

To those who knew him only as the brilliant fighter, the sim- 
plest outline of that character would seem but an ideal picture, 



1S!;5.] 



THE U.NIVERSTTY ilEMOEIAL. 



touclied by tliat tenderness Aviiich regret so often brings in retro- 
spection ; to tlioso wiio sliared with liini the rough dob'glits, the 
toils, the dangers of bivouac, of march, and fichl of battle, any 
portrait must seem at be.^t but a ])lurred picture of the young sol- 
dier whose simple, godly, heroic life disdains, as it were, all liurnan 
panegyric. 

To speak of his cliildhood does not belong to the scope of this 
memoir. 

In October 1860, he matriculated as a student in the University 
of Virginia, entering the school of Law. He was then nineteen 
years old, reserved almost to shyness, grave and gracious in his 
manner, in which there was little of i)rimness and much of the 
charm of an old-fashioned politeness. His apparent shyness was 
owing, doubtless, partly to his extreme near-sightedness, partly to 
the modesty of his nature. To those students who Avero not his 
intimates, but happened to meet him occasionally in the rooms of 
common friends, it was often a matter of wonder and remark how 
keen a sense of humor there was in this cpiiet, sober-looking lad, 
who assuredly yielded to no one in his thorough appreciation of 
the most delicate witticism. 

In the autumn of tiiis year the students determined to organize 
two companies of infantry, and Pegra."\i at once became an active 
promoter of the enterj)rise. He entered the first company formed, 
known as " Tiie Southern Guard," and was a})pointed 1st Sergeant. 
He was then a capital infantry soldier, having been for two years 
a member of the famous "Company F," of Richmond, and proved 
untiring in drilling his men. In 1861 came Lincoln's proclama- 
tion calling for 50,000 volunteers. From that moment books 
were little thought of in the University : all were eager to ex- 
change gown for sword, Pegram at once left College and re- 
ported for duty with his old company, which had been ordered to 
Acquia Creek. With this company he remained but a short time. 
Sent as drill-master to exercise the artillerymen of Walker in the 
infantry tactics, he was elected Lieutenant of the " Purcell Battery." 
It was as commander of this battery that he was destined to achieve 
his liard-won fame — a battery which was with liim from the first 
battle of Manassas, through every general action in Virginia, to the 
trenches of Petersburg — which, always skilfully handled in the 
presence of tiie enemy, yet lost during its four years of service 
more than two hundred men killed and loounded; and of which he 



716 ,■ THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[April, 



declared repeatedly when Colonel that " the Purcell men were the 
coolest and the most desperate men he ever saw in a tight place." 
Lindsay Walker, afterwards Brigadier-General and Chief of Ar- 
tillery of Hill's Corps, was then Captain of the battery, and was 
not slow to discover what a thorough soldier he possessed in his 
young subaltern. Long afterwards Walker generously said that 
Pegram spared him all trouble, and that commanding a battery, 
the most troublesome thing in the world, became a pleasure with 
such an executive officer. In the cam])aign of '61 the battery was 
engaged at Bull Run ; Walker received his majority early in '62, 
and Pegram became Captain on the reorganization. But it was 
not until the great struggle in front of Richmond, in July of '62, 
that the battery came into marked prominence. At Mechanics- 
ville it held the post of honor, and paid the price which the post 
of honor ever exacts. Here first to the army the young Captain 
gave 2)roof of that stubborn courage and literal obedience to orders 
which all men thereafter looked for in him. Exposed to a murder- 
ous fire of infantry, to the convergent fire of five six-gun batteries, 
long after night came down the thunder of his guns told that he 
was tenaciously holding his ground. But there was surprise 
mingled with admiration when it became known to the army on 
the next day that of his six guns four had been disabled before 
nightfall, that two of his officers had been badly wounded, more 
than half his horses killed, and that of the ninety dashing can- 
noneers who had on yesterday galloped into action, more than fifty 
lay killed and wounded on the field. 

The day after "Mechanicsville" he equipped thoroughly the 
two guns which had not been disabled, and again applied to 
General Hill to have the advance. Everywhere during the Seven 
Days, that plucky section and its young Captain found their place 
where the battle raged hottest. Richmond, in her joy of triumpli, 
a joy chastened l)y the sorrow which victory ever brings, was not 
unmindful of her youthful hero. The town rang with his praises 
— praises closest to a soldier's heart ! — from the lips of wounded 
men, who had seen him in the dust and sweat of battle, and who 
spoke of him as only brave men can speak of each other. His 
name \vas introduced into the play by one of the actors at the 
theatre, and elicited the most tumultuous applause. The player 
declared that the boy Captain fought at such close quarters because 
he was too near-sighted to see a dozen yards, and would never 



iS63.j 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 717 



open fire until he saw the enemy. At this the bronzed and 
bearded veterans in the pit rose and cheered lustily. ]\rean while 
the young Captain remained modestly at his camp, riding into the 
city but rarely to visit his immediate family, and blushing pain- 
fully when anyone spoke to him of the attention his gallantry had 
excited. Especially annoying to him were the fulsome praises 
showered upon him by newspapers. His distress at these para- 
graphs was a great source of amusement to his comrades. " ^Vhy, 
this is simply disgusting," he Avould say; " every man at the front 
will be laughing over it." But the men at the front were never 
prone to laugh at good fighters, and gave even more exaggerated 
accounts of his achievements than did the florid paragraphs of the 
journals. 

A few days of rest, and his battery, newly equipped and recruited, 
was on the march to Cedar Mountain with Jackson's flying column. 
Here again his guns, pushed up within eighty yards of the enemy, 
were served with such rapidity and precision as won a nod of ap- 
proval even from the great leader, always so chary of praise. 
About nightfall, when General Jackson had determined to press the 
retreating enemy, Pegram's guns, supported by Fields' brigade, 
were advanced within close range of the spot where the enemy 
was supposed to have halted. In a few moments a heavy column 
was seen marching on the flank of the jruns. Owinir to the un- 
certain light it was impossible to tell whether it was a column of 
Federals or of our own men. The officers of the support differed 
in opinion regarding the matter, and time was precious. Pegram 
at once turned his battery over to his 1st Lieutenant, saying: — 
"McGraw, I shall ride np close to these fellows; keep a sharp 
lookout, and if you see me wave my hat, open all the guns." In 
a moment he was galloping towards the column, now Avithin 
a hundred yards, reined in liis horse close to tne silently moving 
mass, turned, and waved his hat. Another moment and lie rode 
at full speed into the line of guns, where old Stonewall sat on his 
sorrel watching the column. Pegram cried out in great glee: — 
" Pitch in, men; General Jackson's looking at you !" The enemy 
were l)roken in a few minutes by his rapid fire, but speedily put 
three batteries into position and returned it. For two hoiu's this 
single battery fought eighteen guns of the enemy, and it was not 
until ten o'clock that his heated and disabled Napoleons were 
silenced. His loss was, proportionally, very nearly as great as at 



718 THE UNIVEBSITY MEMORIAL.^ [April/ 

Mechanicsville; but he was determined to push on with Walker's 
battalion to Manassas, where for the second tiaae his guns did good 
service on that glorious field. In the investment of Harper's 
Ferry, where all the artillery was served admirably, his battery 
and that of Crenshaw won especial attention, owing to their good 
fortune in occupying a position very near the town and deemed 
inaccessible. In his official report (April 23d, 1863) of tlie cap- 
ture of the place. General Jackson says: — "Lieutenant-Colonel 
Walker opened a rapid enfilade fire from all his batteries at about 
one thousand yards range." (Here follow names of other batteries 
not attached to the Light Division). "In an hour the enemy's 
fire seemed to be silenced, and the batteries of General Hill were 
ordered to cease their fire, which was the signal for storming the 
works. General Pender had commenced his advance, when tlie 
enemy again opening, Pegram and Crenshaw moved forward 
their batteries and poured a rapid fire into the enemy. The white 
flag was now displayed, and shortly afterwards Brigadier-General 
White, with a garrison of 11,090 men, surrendered as prisoners 
of war." 

On the capitulation of the post Pegram was enabled to refit 
his battery thoroughly from the vast quantity of captured muni- 
tions of war, and moved with his battalion up to Sharpsburg. 
Here lie received his first wound, a fragment of shell striking him 
on the head. He refused to avail himself of leave of absence, 
and within a fortnight was on duty with his battery. At Sharps- 
burg his bugler was killed ; he at once set diligently to work and 
learned to sound accurately every call. For many months after- 
ward he sounded all the calls in his battery, from reveille to 
" lights out." At the battle of Fredericksburg, the cord by which 
his bugle was suspended was cut by a bullet and the bugle fell to 
the ground. He dismounted, picked it up and coolly spliced the 
cord, under the murderous fire to which his battery was tiien 
exposed. 

After Sharpsburg came a period of quiet, grateful beyond ex- 
pression to the worn veterans of Jackson's corps. Recrossing the 
river, they went into camp after the affair at Shepherdstown, along 
the Opequan, in the lovely valley of the Slienandoah. Here they 
basked lazily in the bright October sunshine, enjoying rest and 
plenty, some of them not unmindful of the glorious welcome Avhich 
Nature gave the victors — cool streams, gorgeous tints of crimson 



1803.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. 719 

and russet woodland, blue mountains fading softly in the distance. 
Thus passed October. 

In November Jackson moved slowly in the direction of Mill- 
wood, and in December was ordered to rejoin Lee in tlie neighbor- 
hood of Fredericksburg. Here, in the action of the 13th, Pegram 
bore his usual part. General Jackson, riding along the front of 
Lane and Archer, said : — " They will attack here." On that front, 
crowning the hills nearest Hamilton's Crossing, fourteen picked 
guns ^yeve posted by his order. Tliese guns consisted of the bat- 
teries of Pegram, and the intrepid Mcintosh, of South Carolina, 
togetlier with sections from tiio batteries of Johnson, Crenshaw, 
and Latham. As the sun came burstino- throuo;h the mist on that 
glorious morning, the army from its position looked down upon a 
scene which stirred alike the heart of conscript and veteran. 
Countless batteries, supported by vast masses of infmtry, were 
marching, in all the pride and circumstance of war, across the 
plain, sworn to wrest victory from the perch to which she obsti- 
nately clung — the tattered battle-flags of '^ rebellion." Far on the 
right, as the steady-marching columns passed the river road, the boy 
Paladin Pelham, his cap gay with ribbons, was seen manoGuvring 
his single "Napoleon " within easy range of the looming masses 
of the enemy, doing his devoir with a valor so gay and dehonnair 
as drew to him the heart of an army. Pegram, always chary of 
praise, always generous and quick to recognize extraordinary 
daring, broke out into excited expressions of admiration as he 
watched the young soldier stubbornly holding his advanced posi- 
tion. Those who in turn watched his own faintly-flushing cheek, 
and the light of battle kindling in his eyes, looked at each other 
and smiled, knowing how he himself was longing to "get in." 
Nor did he have long to wait. The great columns were marching 
straight upon his guns. Not until the enemy were within eight 
hundred yards did these batteries open fire. Before the storm of 
shot and shell the enemy broke and fled. Again the grand 
divisions of Hooker and Franklin came surging up, and pierced 
the gap between Lane and Archer. Jackson's second line was 
now advanced, and the enemy speedily driven back. In both 
attacks the picked guns performed superb service, but their 
loss was severe. Not only were they subjected to a galling fire 
of infantry, but the artillery of the enemy, admirably served and 
opposing three or four times as many guns, poured upon them 



720 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. [April, 

an unceasing rain of shot and shell. The artillery duel lasted 
many hours, but the Confederate batteries were never silenced. 

During the winter Pegram received his Majority. His energy, 
his devotion to duty, his fighting qualities had won the commen- 
dation of all his superior officers from his immediate Chief of 
Artillery to the General of the army. 

He spent the winter much as he had done the last, attending to 
the administration of affairs in camp and busying himself in pro- 
moting the comfort of his men. His letters to his family at this 
time breathe the constant prayer that he may be enabled to do his 
duty by his men as a Christian and a good officer. One of his 
first cares in winter-quarters was to assemble the men and say a 
few words to them concerning the importance of building a chapel 
and holding regular prayer-meetings. All these services he himself 
attended with earnest pleasure; and it was a common sight to see 
him sitting among his men in the rude log-chapel, bowing his 
young head reverently in prayer, or singing from the same hymn- 
book with some weather-beaten private from whom he had ever 
exacted strictest military obedience. His discipline, indeed, was 
that Avhich belongs to long-established armies. He justly* con- 
sidered that it was mercy in the end to punish every violation of 
duty, and he knew that men do not grow restive under discipline 
the sternest at the hands of officers who lead well in action. He 
performed with soldierly exactness every duty pertaining to his 
own position, and held officers and men to a rigid accountability. 
His closest personal friends ceased to look for any deviation in their 
favor, from his strict enforcement of the regulations. For four 
years he maintained such discipline, and with notable results. Not 
only in his lifetime were his men ever ready, nay eager, to meet 
the enemy, but when he himself had fallen in action, the old bat- 
talion followed its officers, some through their very homes, to the 
plains of Appomattox, with ranks intact save from casualties of 
fight. 

At Chancellorsville he was with the great leader in his last 
march "on the flank." At one time during the battle, owing to 
the wounding of some of his superior officers, Pegram held com- 
mand of sixty guns. The stern joy of that fight never faded from 
his mind. Long afterwards, when a group of his brother officers 
were playfully discussing the days they counted happiest in tiieir 
lives, one of them asked him, "Well, Colonel, wliat day do you 
count your happiest?" "Oh!" said he, "the day I had sixty 



iSfol THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 721 

guns under me at Chancellorsville, galloping down the turnpike 
after Hooker and his people." 

Soon after ''Chancellorsville" he sought and obtained leave of 
absence to visit his home. While there ho was prostrated by a 
severe attack of chills and fever, and was rallying slowly when 
news came that the army was in motion. Rumor coulidently 
affirmed tiiat our standards were advancing once more toward the 
border. Despite the remonstrances of those whom he most 
tenderly loved, he set out at once to rejoin his command. He 
reached his battalion the day after they had crossed the Potomac. 
Not only did his officers and men give him joyful welcome ou the 
eve of what all men felt would be the great fight of the war, but 
General Lee, who had seen him immediately on his arrival, said 
to General A. P. Hill, whom he met a few moments after, " Gen- 
eral Hill, I have good news for you; Major Pegram is up." 
"Yes," said General Hill, "that is good news." A staff-officer 
of Hill repeated this to Pegram. The compliment could not fail 
to please the youthful soldier, and he afterwards said to a comrade 
that he valued those few words from the General of the army and 
the General of his corps more than another star upon his collar. 
The other star he was destined soon to win. 

At Gettysburg his battalion suffered severely, as did the rest of 
the artillery. Many of his officers and men were slain, and he 
left eighty of his horses dead on the field. But his energy made 
light of difficulties, and the battalion was speedily in readiness to 
be " put in " again. During the next winter he was promoted to 
Lieutenant-Colonel. Of his services in the campaigns of '6-4 and 
'Go, in which the fighting was continuous, it would be im^iossible 
to speak in detail. The time would fail to tell of the part played 
by his battalion at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, 
Jericho Ford, Second Cold Harbor, Reams' Station, the Crater, 
the actions of August 18th, 19th, and 21st, for the possession of 
the Weldon Railroad, second battle of Reams' Station, actions of 
September 30th and October 1st, on tiie right of Petersburg, the 
actions on Hatcher's Run, and the general action of March 25th 
along the whole line of the army. During these campaigns he 
was under fire almost every day. As the struggle grew closer and 
more desperate, his utter devotion to !ils God and to his country 
shone forth with such steady lustre as gave encouragement to many 
other brave hearts in that army. 
46 



722 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL, fApril, 

At Spottsvlvania Court House on the 12th of May he com- 
manded the guns immediately at the Court House. In addition to 
his own battalion, several batteries were ordered to report to him. 
All the morning, as the battle raged furiously on his right, he 
walked to and fro among his blackened guns, looking eagerly at 
every passing courier, burning to " get in." At last the hour 
came. It became evident about 4 P. M. that the enemy was 
massing heavily in his front. General Lee sent a staff-officer to 
him to say that he must hold the height with his guns, that he 
could spare but little infantry. Pegram's face lighted up at once 
as he replied : " Colonel, you can say to General Lee that I will 
hold the place while I have a man to sponge a gun." Soon after 
4 o'clock the enemy debouched from the woods. It was a stirring 
sight — the long blue lines, brigade front, moving across to the 
attack, colors flying and men cheering. On the Confederate front 
everything was silent ; a dozen rounds of canister had been "run 
up " to each gun, the guns already shotted, primers fixed and lan- 
yard taut — all waiting for the word. The young commander rode 
up and down the lines, his voice deep with the joy of the coming 
fight, speaking briefly to each battery commander: "Captain, 
shoot the first man who pulls a lanyard until I raise my sabre as 
a signal." A group of Generals, among whom were Lee and Gor- 
don and Early, sat on their horses among the guns. Pegram's 
jov was manifest to all. His glorious, boyish face flushed through 
its bronze, and as the enemy swept up within six or eight hundred 
yards, he raised his sabre and shouted " Fire!" Within a few 
minutes the enemy broke and fled, rallied and again came to the 
charge ; but Mahone's and Cooke's brigades were now on their 
flank, and the fio;htino- was over. 

Repeatedly during that campaign did he receive emjjhatic praise 
from the Generals of divisions with whom he served, as well as 
from the General of his corps. In the action of September 30th, 
1864, when Heth's and Wilcox's divisions were sent to recover 
the extension of the line of rifle-pits to the right of Petersburg, 
his conduct excited especial remark. Soon after the troops became 
hotly engaged Pegram opened all his guns, and then rode forward 
with the infantry in the charge. The brunt of the fight fell on 
McGowan's gallant South Carolina brigade, the enemy making a 
most determined stand in a skirt of pine woods immediately in 
their front. This little brigade, largely outnumbered, pushed the 



1865.] ■ THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 723 

enemy steadily through the pines to an open lield beyond. Sud- 
denly the Federals put in two fresh brigades. The South Carolina 
brigade was in turn being pushed back slowly^ stubbornly dis- 
puting the ground, when Pegram, riding through the line of 
battle, snatched the colors from the ensign and rode with them 
straight toward the enemy. AVhen forty or fifty yards in advance 
of the whole line, placing the color-staif on his stirrup and turning 
halfway round in his saddle, he dropped the reins on his horses 
neck, raised his hat and shouted out in tones sweet and clear as a 
bugle, " Follow me, men ! " It was a scene never to be forgotten 
— the glorious sunset, the lithe, boyish form, now sharply cut 
against the crimson western sky, then hid for a moment by the 
smoke of battle the tattered colors, the cheering lines of men. 
With a rousing yell the sturdy brigade closed up, and never 
after gave back a single inch. The color-bearer ran out to him, 
the tears standing in his eyes, and cried out : " Give me back my 
colors, Colonel ! I'll carry them wherever you say ! " " Oh ! 
I'm sure of that," he answered cheerily ; " it was necessary to 
let the whole line see the colors : that's the only reason I took 
them." In the action of the next day, October 1st, he received 
a slight wound, being struck in the leg by one of the enemy's 
sharpshooters while riding along the skirmish-line. He did 
not, however, leave the field during the fight, nor would he 
apply for leave of absence afterwards. In the latter part of this 
same month General Heth applied for him to be assigned as 
Brigadier-General to Field's and Archer's (consolidated) brigades, 
and Lieutenant-General R. H. Anderson soon after asked that he 
be assigned a brigade in his corps. The recommendation of Gen- 
eral Heth was forwarded to army headquarters by Lieutenant- 
General A. P. Hill, with the endorsement *hat '' no officer in the 
Army of Northern Virginia had done more to deserve such 'pro- 
motion than Lieutenant- Colonel Pegram." 

His letter to liis mother announcing General Heth's recom- 
mendation gives no small insight into the modesty of his nature 
and that humble dependence on God wiiich ciiaractcrized with 
him thought, word, and deed. His chief anxiety in the matter 
seemed to bo lest he shouhl be j)romoted as Brigadier before his 
accomplished brother. General Joiin Pegram * received liis com- 
mission asMajor-Generai. After speaking of the condition of the 

*KilJed at the head of his division, February 6th, 18C5. 



724 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. |-.^prii, 

brigades, he says (October 28tb, 1864) : — "Now, my dear mother, 
you must not think that I am conceited, and that I rely on 
my own ability, if I get this position and take it. I would 
not accept the position, but I believe the maxim given me by 
General Dabney Maury to be the proper one for a soldier to follow : 
' Nev^er to seek promotion, and never to refuse it, but leave it to 
your superiors to judge of you.' ... If I felt tliat was from 
my own merit, I should be afraid to go again on the battle-field. 
I hope sincerely that before I am promoted to that grade, if it is to 
be done, brother will be made Major-General ; for, otherwise, I 
shall not believe that they ever promote according to merit. Do 
not be disappointed if General Lee refuses to have me promoted. 
He will do whatever is for the good of the service, and I had 
rather be in the ranks than have him do otherwise. Besides, I 
believe that God rules in small affairs as in great. He orders all 
things for the best. If I do get it, I will take it with fear and 
trembling, trusting to God's guidance and mercy, and constantly 
praying to Him for help who has been so merciful to me, a sin- 
ner." 

Fortunately, it was decided that "the artillery could not lose 
the services of so valuable an officer," and he received instead a 
commission as Colonel of Artillery, a rank justly reckoned in every 
service higher than Brigadier of Infantry. General Lee wrote 
afterwards in regard to the matter: — "The appointment was not 
denied for want of confidence in his ability, for no one in the army 
had a higher opinion of his gallantry and worth than myself. 
They were conspicuous on every field. Colonel Pegram had the 
command of a fine battalion of artillery, a service in which he was 
signally skilful, in which he delighted, and in which I understood 
that he preferred to remain." Of the last few months of his life 
— inexpressibly saddened by the death of his noble brother — it 
is scarcely possible to speak save in such terms as would seem ex- 
cess of panegyric. 

Fortunately, he happened to be at home on sick leave when 
news came that his brother had fallen in action. Rarely have 
brothers so tenderly loved and so sincerely admired each other as 
did these two; but he bore up bravely under his own sorrow, for 
the sake of the gentle hearts which had been smitten by a blow 
more cruel than that which struck down their soldier at the head 
of his division. To a comrade in the army he wrote (February 



3865.] 



THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 725 



15th, 1865): — "Words cannot express the grief this bkiw has 
brought upon us all. We can only thank God that He did not 
take him from this world until he had learned to look above it. 
While we who are left behind can never cease to mourn for one 
who was so dear to us, we cannot but feel grateful that his death 
came to him in such a manner — the manner in which he always 
wished to die; and above all, we cannot but feel grateful for the 
belief that he is enjoying eternal rest and happiness now, and for 
the hope that we may be united with him hereafter." The next 
week he returned to the army. 

The days grew darker and still more dark for " the cause," and 
like a true soldier, he put aside his own grief to speak cheering 
words to those about him. In Richmond he had heard much talk 
in regard to the necessity of withdrawing from Virginia. His 
love for his State was such as God has implanted in the hearts of 
all true Virginians ; and it was a pang to him even to contemplate 
surrendering the battle-scarred bosom of the " Old Mother " to 
the petty tyrannies of those who hated and feared her. " I would 
rather die,'' he said slowly, " than see Virginia given up, even for 
three months; but we'll all follow the battle-flag anyivhere.'^ 

On the 1st day of April, just as the earth was beginning once 
more to grow glad with flowers, came to him the last of many 
fights. The brilliant artillerist, the pride of his corps, who 
during four years of active service had never lost a gun, was to 
fall at "Five Forks," with all his wounds in front, fighting such 
odds as had never yet confronted him. For two days previous to 
the battle he had undergone immense fatigue : in the saddle day 
and night, with slight intermission, for forty-eight hours ; wet, 
hungry, no blankets; engaging almost continually the cavalry of 
the enemy. On the very morning of the fight his breakfast con- 
sisted of a handful of parched corn, which he generously shared 
with a comrade. In the centre of the line of battle were posted 
one gun from his own battalion, commanded by Lieutenant llollis 
(Ellett's battery), and a section from Braxton's battalion, com- 
manded by Lieutenant Early. Further to the right, sweeping 
the Gilliam field, were- the remaining three guns of Ellett's 
battery. 

There had been during the morning some snarp skirmishing 
with the enemy, but everything had grown (|uiet towards midday, 
and old soldiers doubted whether there would be any general 



726 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. [•_,,p,i^_ 

engagement. Pegram, wearied clown by fatigue, was sleeping 
soundly among the guns on the right, when sudden, ripping 
volleys of musketry from the centre told him that the enemy were 
charging his batteries. He instantly jumped into the saddle, and 
rode at full speed down the line of battle to his guns. Lieuten- 
ants Hollis and Early were using double canister at close range, 
and their cannoneers were serving their pieces in a manner beyond 
all praise. Within thirty yards of the guns the dense columns of 
the enemy were staggering under their rapid fire. Pegram rode 
in, speaking cheerily to the men, a sweet serenity on his boyish 
face, but the old light of battle shining in his eyes. " Fire your 
canister lo-w, men ! " he shouted, as the blue lines surged still 
nearer to the heated guns. It was his last order on a field of battle. 
Suddenly he reeled and fell from his saddle. Small wonder that 
he was first to fall. The infantry were lying down, by order, 
firing over a low " curtain " which they had hastily thrown up ; 
he was sitting on his white horse on the front line of battle, cheer- 
ing and encouraging his men. He had received his mortal wound, 
and knew it. "Tell my mother and sisters," he said firmly," that 
I commend them to God's protection. It will be a great blow to 
them at home to lose me so soon after 'Brother'; but for myself, 
I am ready." He knew nothing of the bitter defeat. When vic- 
tory no longer perched on the battle-flag of his old battalion, he 
had received his last promotion at the hands of the great Captain. 
He met a soldier's death, and had but a soldier's burial. Wrapped 
carefully in a coarse blanket, he was laid to rest in the bosom of 
his mother State, Virginia. 

Brief as was his life, he had been for six years a devoted mem- 
ber of the Episcopal Church ; and a comrade read at his grave 
her grand and solemn ritual for the dead. 

He now sleeps at Hollywood, beside his knightly brother, on a 
spot sloping to the ever-murmuring James, and overlooking that 
beautiful city in whose defence both of them so often went forth to 
battle, counting their lives a worthless thing. 

Thus passed away "this incomparable young man," in the 
twenty-fourth year of his age. It was his lot to be tried in great 
events, and his fortune to be equal to the trial. In his boyhood 
he had nourished noble ambitions, in his young manhood he had 
won a fame greater than his modest nature ever dreamed, and, at 
last, there was accorded him on the field of battle the death 
counted sweet and honorable. 



1865.] THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 727 

FRANCIS W. SMITH, 

Lieutenant-Colonel of Artillery. 

Francis Williamson Smith, eldest child of James Marsden 
and Anne Walke Smith, of Norfolk, Virginia, was born in that 
city, November 12th, 1838. His paternal grandfather, Francis 
Smith, Esq., (from Lancashire, England), emigrated to Maryland 
before the Revolution, (in which struggle he sided with the 
Colonists), and afterwards removed to Norfolk, where (in 1799) he 
married Anne, daughter of James Marsden, of the Marsdens of 
Manchester, England. Their son, James Marsden Smith, married 
Anne Walke, daughter of Thomas AVilliamson, of Norfolk, whose 
father was of " The Brook," Henrico county, Virginia ; and from 
this marriage came the subject of this notice. His childhood 
passed eventless in the quiet of home, not without indications, 
such as children give, of the quickness of mind which he after- 
wards showed. Of this whole home-life we liere say no more 
than that its atmosphere of calmness and love gave free scope to 
the boy's powers, and permitted his nature to develop itself 
freely — a thing always of permanent influence in moulding men's 
characters. In 1847 he entered the Norfolk Academy, where he 
received his preparation for College. The Academy, (which has 
played a not unimportant part in the educational liistory of the 
old city), was at that time under the control of Mr. F. W. Hop- 
kins, a man of considerable mental culture and force ; but, he re- 
signing soon after, the principalship of the school passed into the 
hands of Mr. John B. Strange, * who was an able teacher, and had 
much to do with forming the youth of that generation. Tiie cur- 
riculum of the Academy was extensive, arid the instruction ac- 
curate. 

In Mathematics (Mr. Strange's department), pupils went through 
with the Diiferontial and Integral Calculus; in the Ancient Lan- 
guages (under Mr. R. B. Tschudi, since deceased), there was a 
thorough study of Juvenal, Tacitus, Homer, and Sophocles, accord- 
ing to the (somewhat defective) system then prevalent; the Eng- 

* Mr. strange, who was a graduate o£ the Virginia Military In.stitute, afterwards 
removed to Charlottesville, and then to Gordonsville. Wlien tlie war bcsan he was 
made Lieutenaiit-Colond of ttie li)th Virginia Ue^irnent, iieoume Coloiicl in 18i2. 
and was killed whih- gallantly leading his men in an en«agenient during the retreat 
from Maryland (lK(;-2). Many of his old pupils and friends will join the writer in 
paying this tribute to him as faithful teacher, brave soldier, and true-hearted man. 



728 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. [-April, 

lish branches were faithfully taught by Mr. G. W. Sheffield^ 
assisted by Mr. (now Rev.) Robert Gatewood ; and French by a 
cultivated Frenchman, M. Magnin, and later by Mr. Odendhal. 
The pupils were organized into a military corps to which instruc- 
tion was regularly given by Messrs. Strange and Gatewood, and 
which attained a creditable skill in manoeuvring. 

Young Smith took position immediately on entering the 
Academy as one of its best students, and annually carried off the 
highest honors of the school. The examinations, held annuallv in 
February, were intended to be serious and real, and were in fact 
momentous occasions to the youth destined to exhibit their attain- 
ments to the admiring or pitying public. The elite of the city 
assembled to witness this annual trial of sons and brothers, and 
the failures or successes were generally known and discussed. 
Colonel Strange was inexorable in laying bare the intellectual 
structure of his pupils, and had what they regarded as the very 
bad habit of calling on gentlemen in the audience without j:)remo- 
nition to conduct the examination, selecting, for example, one who 
had made his studies in Paris to ask questions on French, and the 
author of a work on Analytical Geometry to elicit the facts of that 
branch of Mathematics from the hapless youth engaged with it. 
The delivery of prizes at the end of the week was necessarily a 
grand affair, the first-prize boy occupying for the time the position 
of Senior Wrangler at Cambridge, and being the hero of the oc- 
casion. This honor fell five successive years to the subject of this 
notice, and he left school in 1853 justly regarded as one of the 
most brilliant boys who had ever gone from it. 

In July of this year he became a cadet of the Virginia Military 
Institute at Lexington, and though very young (under fifteen), 
entered the third class without difficulty, and graduated (in 1856) 
with the first honors of the institution, his class-number being 
2412.4, Willie the cadet standing next to him received but 2096. 
During his last year here he was appointed an Acting Assistant 
Professor. 

From the Institute he went to the University of Virginia 
(October, 1856), and graduated the first session in Greek, Latin, 
Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. The next session he took 
the remaining schools necessary to the degree of Master of Arts, 
and would undoubtedly have passed the degree-examinations but 
for a severe attack of typhoid fever which obliged him to relin- 



Iggj-] THE UISiVEiiSiTY MEMOillAL. 729 

quisli his studies. Virtually ho achieved the University Master's 
degree in two years, a performance the infrequency of which 
sufficiently attests its difficulty. 

In 1858 he went to Europe in company with his uncle, General 
F. H. Smith, Superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, 
and, after a general tour of five months in England, Scotland, 
Ireland, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, through the kindness of 
his friend, Hon. Joiiu Y. Mason, then Minister of the United States 
at the Court of Paris, obtained from the French Minister of In- 
struction a permit to enter the Engineering school ' L'Ecole Impe- 
riale des Pouts et Chaussees.' He had already been designated 
as Professor of Applied Mechanics in the Virginia Military Insti- 
tute, and these studies were entered on by way of preparation for 
this position. Though interrupted after he had pursued them one 
year, they served a purpose of which he had no thou2:ht at the 
time. The course of instruction in tliis celebrated school is one 
of the most thorough in the world. Tlie session begins iu Novem- 
ber and ends in April, and during the intervening time from 
April to November students are required to travel and examine 
bridges, i^ailroads, and at the opening of the session in Novem- 
ber to lay before the Board of Instructors tiie results of their 
observations, each in a ^'journal de voyage." The matter thus 
presented forms iu part the basis of instruction for the session. 
The number of members of. the school is limited, and applicants 
are required to be graduates of the Polytechnic School at Paris, or 
to have equally good preparation. Mr. Smith was examined by 
the lustructor-General of the school on Analytical Geometry, 
Calculus, ]\Iechanics, Architecture and Chemistry, and wouKl have 
been admitted as full member, but preferred entering as a foreigner 
(though he thus forfeited the right to a diplomS), inasmuch as he 
could thus accomplish the course in two years, the ordinary time 
being three years. lie attended the first year's course, comprising 
Railroads, Common Roads, Applied Mechanics, Bridges, INIiueral- 
ogy and Political Economy, at the expiration of which (1859) he 
was called home by a domestic affliction, and never returned to 
the school. 

On reaching Virginia he was elected Assistant Professor of 
Mathematics in the JMilitary Institute of that St ite, and entered on 
tlie duties of the ])osition, which, however, he did not retain long. 
The same summer he was induced to accept the Professorship of 



730 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[April, 



Chemistry and Mineralogy in the " State Seminary of Learning " 
of Louisiana, i)eing made at the same time Commandant of the Corps 
of Cadets with the rank of Major (the school being a military one)."*' 
He entered on his new duties in January 1860, having first gone to 
Paris to select topographical and mathematical plaster-casts, and 
remained till the secession of Virginia (April 1861), when he 
resigned, and went first to Montgomery, Alabama, to tender his 
services to the Confederate Government. He resolved, however, 
soon after reaching Montgomery, to return to his native State, of 
whose forces General R. E. Lee had now been appointed com- 
mander. Accordingly, the seat of government of the Confederate 
States having been transferred to Richmond, he repaired to that 
citv, offered his services to Virginia, and received a Captain's com- 
mission, with the appointment of Military Secretary on General 
Lee's staff, the General's headquarters being then at Richmond. 
During this time General Beauregard made application to General 
Lee (in a letter dated June 20th, 1861), to have Captain Francis 
Smith transferred to his command at Manassas, where, as he ex- 
presses it, " he might be very useful as a staff-ofiicer with me, or as 
a Brigade-Inspector." General Lee did Captain Smith the honor 
to decline the ofier and retain him in his service. It was not 
until correspondence on the subject had ceased between Generals 
Lee and Beauregard that he knew of the attractive prospect that 
had been opened to him, and how narrowly he had missed sharing 
in the glory of the first great victory. In July of this year, having 
been recommended for promotion by General Lee, he received 
from Governor Letcher the commission of Major in the Provisional 
Army of Virginia, and was attached to the 41st Virginia Regi- 
ment, then stationed at Norfolk. The following November he 
was detached from his regiment and sent by General Mahone to 
command the battery at Sewell's Point. The post, as the outer 
defence of Norfolk, was an important one. The battery consisted 
of 36 heavy guns, manned by four artillery companies,! with the 
41st Regiment (about eight hundred men) as infantry support, 
the whole under tlie command of Colonel Chambliss. The posi- 
tion was exposed to constant fire froui the shi^jping which lay in 

* At the same time General W. T. Sherman was elected Principal and Professor 
of Engineering. When Louisiana seceded he resigned and went to Ohio. 

tNorfoUi Blues, Captain Grandy; Manchester Artillery, Captain Weisiger; 
Raglan Guards, Captain Manning; Southampton Artillery, Captain Pretlow. 



isr>.". I 



TIIH rXIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. ' 731 



Hampton Roads, as well as from the battery on Fort Calhoun 
(Rip-raps), and this desultory combat was kept up till March 1862, 
when the Confederate steam-ram Virginia attacked the United 
States steamer Minnesota and tlio ships Congress, Cumberland, 
and St. Laivrence. The brilliant victory of the Virginia is too 
well known to call for description here. The Sewoll's Point 
battery took part in the conflict, and by its fire disabled the 
United States steam-frigate Roanohe, which was advancing to 
the assistance of the Federar fleet. The next month (April) the 
evacuation of Norfolk was determined on, and the work of dis- 
mountiTig guns commenced. Before the preparations were com- 
pleted, however, information of the intended movement was given 
the enemy by a deserter, and fire was opened on the battery (May 
7th) by the Monitor and a frigate, backed by a large fleet which 
kept just out of range of the Confederate guns. Though the best 
guns had been removed, the garrison under Colonel Charabliss 
returned the enemy's fire with spirit, succeeding barely in making 
indentations on the casing of the 3Ionitor, which lay at the dis- 
tance of fourteen hundred yards, and unable to reach the other 
vessels. During the bombardment the men's quarters were riddled 
by balls and the Major's quarters set on fire, and the proximity 
of the fire to a magazine rendered it necessary to remove the 
ammunition to another, under a continuous cannonade. Finally 
the apj)roacli of the Virginia from the navy-yard at Gosport 
forced tlie attacking fleet to withdraw. Throughout the eny-acce- 
ment Major Smith directed his command with a cool intx'epidity 
which won for him the respect of the men and heightened the 
confidence which his military skill and firm discipline had pre- 
viously produced. Before the evacuation of Norfolk, not having 
been re-elected by his regiment in consequence «of his detachment 
from it, he had tendered his services to General Mahone as 
volunteer Aide, and he now accompanied him on the retreat and 
served with him in the battle of Seven Pines and on the Chicka- 
hominy. 

Here he remained till June 22(1, when he received a commission 
as Major in the Confederate States Army. He requested per- 
mission to re2)ort to General Jackson, but was ordered to Drewry's 
BlufP, where he remained till June 18G4, under the immediate 
command of a naval officer. Captain S. S. Lee. His earnest wish 
to be with General Jackson, founded not only on the 2)rospect of 



732 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIAL. [^pril, 

brilliant service under that commander, but also on bis aiFection for 
bis old instructor, led bim to make a second application for transfer 
in Marcb 1863, wliicb was also refused. Again, after tbe battle 
of Chancellorsville (May 1863), be made an effort to excbange 
commands with an old friend and comrade wbo commanded an in- 
fantry regiment, and wbo felt at tbe time pbysically unequal to tbe 
marcb into Pennsylvania. Tbe department declined to permit 
tbe exchange, and in three weeks from that time bis friend fell 
on tbe battle field in the first engagement in the enemy's country. 
Other like attempts to procure a transfer failing, Major Smith 
remained in command of the batteries at Drewry's Bluff, having 
under bim a battalion of four companies.* During his stay here 
of two years there was no general engagemenrt. On the 5tb of 
May 1864, thirty-four gunboats came up the river and landed 
three or four regiments, which advanced as if to attack the works. 
Tbe whole care of tbe defence devolved on Major Smith, who 
arranged his small force so as to cover the entire line of breast- 
works. The enemy, however, did not attack. This was Butler's 
first demonstration on the Southside (May 7th). A few days 
after (May lOtb) a severe battle was fought, in which our forces 
at first drove tbe enemy, and then, coming on their breastworks, 
were obliged to retire Avith loss. Then followed a long stay in the 
trenches under heavy fire of artillery. Altogether, the responsi- 
bility resulting from the importance of the post and the continual 
possibility of attack made the service an arduous and wearing 
one, and tbe commandant's physical system was perhaps more 
severely taxed than it would have been in a more active field. 

In June 1864, he was ordered to erect batteries at Howlett's 
Farm, opposite Dutch Gap, where General Burnside had en- 
trenched himself. Here he had under him four batteries and six 
companies, his immediate commander being General Pickett. At 
this post the service was bard. The rations which tbe Govern- 
ment was able to provide were insufQcient in quality and quantity, 
and Major Smith would not fare better than bis men. There 
was, however, no lack of cheerfulness in the camp. He bad gone 
there resolved, as be says, to make tbe place a desirable one. The 
society Avas pleasant ; be speaks in the highest terms of the sol- 
dierly and gentlemanly qualities of the commanding General. 

♦Norfolk United Artillery, Captain Kevill ; Johnston's Artillery, Captain Eppes; 
Keblitt's Artillery, Captain Coleman; and one company of the Southside Artillery, 
commanded successively by Captains Jones and Drewry. 



1830.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



Moreover, the activity of the enemy relieved the garrison from 
fear of stagnation. In the month of June General Butler made 
his more serious advance on Richmond on the Southside. At the 
beginning oC the movement (June IGtli), Major Smith was enabled 
to render an important service to his commanding officers. Gen- 
eral Pickett had been directed to hold the lino, supported by 
Longstreet's corps under General E.. H. Anderson. The two 
Generals, making a reconnoissance with a long cavalcade of staff- 
officers, under the volunteered guidance of Major Smith, who 
knew the country, and it being necessary to know where our line 
of skirmishers was, the Major offered to ascertain, rode forward 
with his couriers, came upon a party in the woods wiiom he at 
first supposed to be our men, dismounted to examine them with 
his glass, soon disc6vered that they were enemies, and remounted 
and rode away under their fire in time to save Generals Pickett 
and Anderson and their staffs from capture. The party in ques- 
tion formed the enemy's extreme left. In the engagement M'hich 
immediately followed his horse was killed, but he escaped unhurt. 

Some days later the battery at Howlett's Farm was unmasked, 
and did good service, damaging the enemy's fleet, with small loss 
to the garrison. The summer and autumn of this campaign were 
marked by frequent engagements of a like nature. In February 
of the next year, Major Smith had a gratifying recognition of the 
efficiency of his battery in the effort made by Colonel Anderson 
of the artillery to secure his promotion. This officer, tliough 
stationed on the opposite side of the river, marked him in a dis- 
tinguished manner, and urged his promotion as strongly as he 
could under the circumstances, not being in the same immediate 
command with him. It was, however, not till two months later 
that he received his commission as Lieutenant-Colonel just before 
the evacuation of Ilichmond. 

A few days before the evacuation, he obtained leave of absence 
of several days in order to remove his family to a place of safety. 
After he had escorted them as far as he could go, his anxiety in 
respect to his command caused him to return before his leave had 
expired. Saturday, April 1st, he crossed the swollen Chickahom- 
iny in spite of the remonstrances of persons present,* reached his 
command at daylight next morning, and on INIonday, in obedience 
to orders, he joined the retreating column with his battalion, which 

* A few hours later the river had risen so that uo one, could cross. 



734 THE UNIVERSITY MEMOBIAL. 



[NP 



he conducted as infantry. He had a presentiment that he would 
not outlive the march. Physically he was not in the best con- 
dition. His service had been unintermitted : since February 18G2 
he had never allowed himself a longer respite than four days, and 
his health was further impaired by insufficient nourishment. He 
set out on the march with the conviction that he would not survive 
a wound received under trying circumstances ; and on the morning 
of Wednesday (April 5th), he expressed (seemingly without de- 
pression) to a gentleman near him the belief that he would be 
killed that day. Towards- the close of the day, at twilight, the 
command being then near Amelia Springs, a report of the advance 
of General Sheridan caused some confusion in the column ahead. 
Colonel Smith advanced with his battalion, and in the firing 
which ensued his horse was killed and he himself wounded in the 
groin and leg. He requested not to be left, and so travelled all 
night, his calm and cheerful tone producing on some of his men 
who were wounded at the same time the impression that his hurt 
was not very severe. This night-march was no doubt injurious 
to him. When he reached Amelia Springs next morning, the 
surgeon who was with him told him that there was no hope of 
life. The last hours he spent calmly, sustained by religious 
trust, in sending the last messages to his family. At nine o'clock 
the enemy appeared, and his friends left him tojoin the retreating 
army. Some of his men remained and ministered as they could 
to his comfort. At noon (April 6th) he died. 

Thus was taken away one of the most brilliant and promising 
of the sons of Virginia. Having everywhere distinguished him- 
self, Colonel Smith might have hoped for a career of honorable 
usefulness. Soon after the close of the war, before his death was 
known, the superintendency of the Louisiana State Military Acad- 
emy was offered him. This position had been pressed on him 
during his stay at Drewry's Bluff, but he would not leave the 
array. There and elsewhere was the prospect of a most successful 
professional career. Instead of such usefulness and fame, he leaves 
us the heritage of his virtue and devotion to honor. 



1SG5.] THE UNIVEKSITY MEMORIAL. 735 



PERCIYAL ELLIOTT, 

Private, " Savannah Volunteer Guards." 

Far down in the depths of our fallen natures, uniting in one 
great bond the common heart of humanity, dwells an immortal 
instinct — a pure, sweet breath from realms of sinless being — 
which ever prompts us amid the grosser passions of our lives to 
love the good, to delight in the beautiful, to honor the noble, to 
cherish the true; and be these attributes expressed in the life of 
the one or recorded in the history of the many, be they the re- 
sults of our immortal yearnings worked out in our blind strug- 
glings for things above us and beyond, or be they expressed in the 
lofty devotion of a national soul to the principles of right and of 
justice, the promptings of this instinct are still the same ; and the 
noble and the good, and the beautiful and the true, striking within 
us this deep key-note of our natures, whisper to us ever of the far 
off realm from which we are aliens and wanderers. 

And thus it is that while the narrower passion; which rale man- 
kind lead in their sway opposing hosts to days of strife and 
slaughter, this pure and broader instinct, in some such day, will 
wring alike from hearts of friends and enemies the spontaneous 
shout of praise and approbation for the hero who, passing in some 
devoted act beyond the selfish veil of individuality, stands before 
the world to illustrate the nobler breadths of our being. And this 
same instinct stirring in our souls prompts us to merge the indi- 
vidual, the class, the nation, and teaches us to honor and to cherish 
from the broad sympathies of a common humanity tiie noble, the 
good, the beautiful, and the true, wheresoever in the lives of those 
who have done honor to mankind we may catcl^ their imperfect re- 
flections of the calm and eternal radiance. 

But to seize and to frame in words the nameless shades of char- 
acter which make a life beautiful and )ioble is for the biographer 
a task as difficult as is that of the artist who attempts to cast the 
atmosphere of nature over the faithful outlines of his picture. 
The scene which the artist delineates may be recognized by those 
to whom its details arc familiar, but the nameless blending of the 
separate features into the soft and beautiful perfections of truth 
and reality lies far beyond the jiower of art; and the gazer feels, 
while dwelling upon the rigid outlines, that from the unsoftened 



736 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[April, 



representation before him, the delicate, transparent mantle is lack- 
ing which should give a nameless perfection* to the picture. 

Noble in the elements of his character, and blameless in the re- 
lations of his life, the events of Percival Elliott's career in 
their brief statement can do but imperfect justice to the man as he 
lived and moved and was known to those around him. Prefer- 
ring before the applause of others the silent commendations of his 
own conscience, he achieved for himself a spotless record, telling 
of duties nobly performed, showing a purpose consistently fol- 
lowed, crowning a destiny bravely fulfilled ; and yet in the course 
of that brief record is still unrevealed the knightly spirit words 
cannot portray, and Avhich, like the delicate atmosphere to the 
landscape, enveloped and harmonized the proportions of his na- 
ture. 

Percival Elliott was born in the city of Savannah, Georgia, 
on the 28th day of November, 1840. He was the third son of 
the late Ralph Etiimes Elliott, M. D., of Beaufort, South Carolina, 
who afterwards removed to Savannah, Georgia, and there fixed his 
residence. His mother was Margaret Cowper Mackay, of Sa- 
vannah. Georgia. 

"We can only ])ause among the quiet years of his childhood to 
speak of an illness that befell him in the fifth year of his life, 
worthy of note since it serves to illustrate the indomitable will 
with which throughout his after-career he struggled against the 
tyranny of disease. At this period he was stricken with an almost 
fatal attack upon the lungs, from which he slowly rallied to regain 
only a state of comparative health. The effects of tlie disease 
were nevertheless permanent, and by the sufferings which they en- 
tailed served to overshadow the succeeding years of his life. In 
consequence of these early necessities of his health, the course of 
his education Avas often interrupted, and a regular system of in- 
struction was in a measure replaced by the desultory readings in 
which his own tastes led him to indulge. But this uncertain path- 
way to knowledge he trod with safety and success. The sensibili- 
ties of a refined nature here served as his guide; and governed by 
these, his voluntary readings were directed into channels where 
minds of maturer years and culture found their pleasure and de- 
■ light. 

Nevertheless, in his more advanced life, acutely sensible of the 
advantages of a systematic course of studies, he could not remaiu 



1S.T..] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



satisfied with what he deemed the irregularities of his mental cul- 
ture, chaste though they Avere ; and in 1860, when in his twentieth 
year, he formed and put into execution a long premeditated resolve 
to attend a course of lectures at the University of Virginia. It 
"Nvas while j^ursuing his studies at this institution that tliere came 
upon the country those years of darkness and of blood, so often 
prophesied, so long expected, and it caused the earnest student no 
second thought to decide his action in the crisis. Regardless of 
tlie uncertain condition of his health, he threw himself into the 
opening struggle with all the enthusiasm of youth. 

His first military service was performed at the capture of Har- 
per's Ferry in the summer of 18G1, where he was present in the 
ranks of a volunteer company organized by the students of the 
University of Virginia. When this company was dissolved he 
returned to his native city and in the autumn of the same year 
enlisted in the ranks of the Savannah Volunteer Guards, an old and 
established corps, then in service near Savannah. While serving 
here he was offered a commission in another corps, Avliich he, how- 
ever, declined, suggesting in his stead the name of a comrade to 
fill the offered place. 

After remaining for nearly two years in the neighborhood of 
Savannah, he passed with liis corps into the memorable scenes 
which marked the defence of Charleston, South Carolina, in the 
autumn of 1863 ; and there in some of the hard-fought battles of 
Battery Wagner he did good and gallant service. But his health 
now failed him, and he was compelled to seek a field of less arduous 
duties. Under this necessity he applied for and obtained a detail 
into the Signal Corps of the army, and in this new capacity vol- 
unteered at once for service in Fort Sumter. In connection with 
this celebrated fortress he remained for nearly a year, and while 
there discharging his duties was dangerously wounded in the head 
in December 1863 — a wound which had nearly proved fatal. In 
the latter months of his service in this fort he was appointed to 
act as Adjutant of the Post, although the commission to which his 
position entitled him he persistently declined. 

In the autumn of 1864, wdiile lie was still at Fort Sumter, the 
Savannah A^olunteer Guards were ordered to join the forces around 
Richmond, Virginia ; and having somewhat recovered his health, 
and wearying of the monotony of a life from which the engineer's 
skill had removed the excitement of danger, he gave up his position 
47 



738 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[April, 



and rejoined his corps. Through the following winter, while this 
corps was stationed at Chafin's Farm near Richmond, we again 
find him performing his duties as a private in its ranks. 

With the opening of the spring of 1865 the Savannah Volun- 
teer Guards were summoned to take part in the eventful scenes 
of the last campaign of the Army of Northern Virginia; and in 
the battle of Sailor's Creek, one of the combats which marked the 
retreat of the army from Richmond, the corps was literally cut to 
pieces while acting as a portion of a rear-guard to cover the march 
of tiie retiring columns. Into that battle the "Guards" carried 
seventy-five rank and file ; and when finally surrounded and cap- 
tured, fifty-eight of their number had been killed and wounded. 
Recorded among the latter was the name of Percival Elliott, 
who was shot down with a mortal wound while grappling in a 
hand-to-hand struggle with a Federal soldier. 

In his wounded condition he was made a prisoner upon the field 
of battle ; and after being transferred from one place to another, 
was removed finally to the Lincoln Hospital at Washington. 
There for a few sorrowful weeks he lingered, until in the fulness 
of spring, death released him from his sufferings. On the 30th 
day of May 1865, the shadow of the dark angel passed, and the 
soldier was at rest. 

Such are the events which mark the career of Percival 
Elliott : an outline of facts that only hint to us of the spirit 
which animated them. But that spirit was an existence as con- 
sistent as are the facts; and from the first flush of enthusiastic 
ardor, when the pale-browed student cast aside his book, to the 
last dark hour, when the Aveather-beaten soldier lay dying within 
the Avards of a prisoners' hospital, it manifested itself in every 
circumstance and action of life. In the months of disease-encom- 
passed service around Savannah, it Avas illustrated no less clearly 
than amid the exciting scenes of Battery Wagner and Fort Sumter. 
In the winter campaign in the trenches about Richmond it proved 
itself no less thoroughly than in the desperate combat of Sailor's 
Creek. And yet beneath these manifestations which tell us of 
bravery, of faithfulness, of devotion, still lies unexpressed that 
central element of the spirit which served to make it peculiar. 
That pure element it is which in our natures aj)proaches us most 
nearly to the Divine ; that element which we can conceive as 
inspiring the eloquence of the faithful seraph, Avhen standing 



I8ii5.] THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 739 

aloue amid hostile millions he denounced the counsels of the 
apostate archangel ; that rare element which leads to the perform- 
ance of glorious actions without a thought of their glory either as 
incentive or reward. 

And this was the keynote of his nature. To his conscience, 
and tlirough it to his God, he held himself alone responsible for 
his deeds, and from that source only he asked for approval and 
reward. And thus it was that self at last came to be silently 
ignored ; that the applause of others ceased to weigh in the deci- 
sion of his actions ; that a noble modesty was begotten to crown 
the comely statue of his life. 

And based upon such principles as these, that life could not be 
otherwise than pure. To the observer who knew not of the 
hidden wealth, that purity became its distinguishing feature in 
the cam23s, where in word, in thought, and in deed, it was ever 
apparent and remarkable. 

Still another principle there was, intensely human, rooted in the 
ground-work of his nature. We speak of the love of country. 
Throughout his military career it seemed indeed the immediate 
motive of every action, and in its purity and intensity gave to the 
native elements of his character a breadth and comprehensiveness 
scarcely to be developed amid narrower scenes of life. The un- 
selfishness which may have there remained but a comely trait was 
under this influence developed into a noble attribute, of which was 
born a beautiful self-abnegation and thoughtfulness for those about 
him, as if it Avere that through them still he sacrificed to the cause 
he had at heart. lu the conception of his military duty which 
this motive inspired, he passed beyond the narrow limits which 
confined it to the mere eye-service of the soldier, and by word 
and example, no less than by submission to anthority, he sought 
to rise to the lofty standard of his imagination. A quiet and 
reserved spirit, retentive of its own trials and sufferings, was, in 
the presence of mighty events and under the inspiration of noble 
purposes, developed in its strength and taught to bear Avith silent 
stoicism and unwavering fortitude the hours of sickness and pain, 
which could not drive it back from its duty. Truly, amid the 
circumstances that tried men's souls, tiie nature of the man seemed 
to expand to its full limits, as blooms in itsi^erfect beauty the exile 
flower that again has found its native clime. 

But yet a loftier principle there was, completely divine. En- 



{-± 



THE UNIVEKt^lTY IMKMORIAL. 



[April, 



vcloping and pervading the attributes of his nature, purifying 
every noble impulse and harmonizing every action, floated the 
spirit of a ])Mre and consistent Christianity. Under the sway of 
its sacred influence, his duty to liis country became a duty to his 
God, and into his native devotion to her its presence infused the 
knightly S[)!rit that led of yore the blameless warriors of the 
Cross. As through liis love for his native land each element of 
his nature had become expanded and intensified, so too -within the 
sphere of this finer influence did that love itself grow in breadth 
and in depth, until, in the fulness of its perfection, it j^assed into 
the sacred purpose of his life. 

But the cause for which he died has failed, and beneath the 
shadow of a nation's sepulchre the soldier sleeps. A Christian's 
life, a patriot's death, is the brief but glorious summary of his 
days; and while on earth the study of a noble example can teach 
us aught of its nobility, or while the contemplation of manly 
virtues can infuse into our natures aught of their purity and 
their strength, we may cherish in our memories the spotless 
record of the fallen soldier, and feel that he has not lived in vain. 



REUBEN B. BOSTON, 

Colouel, 5tli Virginia Cavalry. 

Red Hill, the former residence of Captain Reuben H. Boston 
and INIargaret S. Rayland, the maiden name of ]\Irs. Boston, is 
handsomely situated on the Rivanna River, in the county of 
Fluvanna, Virginia. During their lifetime it wore an air of neat- 
ness and taste that at the same time besjioke the chai'aeter of those 
who dwelt there, and rendered it one of the most attractive places 
on a stream bordered by some of the finest estates in that section 
of Virginia. Captain and JNIrs. Boston were both native Virgin- 
ians, and belonged to a class of whom it is sad to think there are 
but few now remaining. Time, with the bitter experiences of the 
past few years, has well-nigh swept them all away. Under the roof 
of Captain Boston, no one, whether guest or stranger, could fail to 
be impressed with the warm hospitality that reigned there, or 
depart without carrying with him many kind wishes for those he 
left behind. - 



18()5.J 



THE UNIVEESITY MEMOKIAL. 711 



Here, and of such parentage, on the 21st day of April 1834, was 
born Reuben Beverley Boston, the subject of this sketch. 1 n 
liis youthful days he was not particularly fond of study, and yet 
at the early age of nineteen or twenty years he had attained such 
proficiency as a scholar that we find him connected as one of the 
teachers witli a first-class classical school of fine reputation, at Mr. 
Franklin Minor's, in the county of Albemarle. 

In the fall of 1855 he entered the University as a student of 
law, and pursued his studies there with more tliau ordinary 
assiduity throughout the session. lie did not offer for gradua- 
tion ; but with less fondness for social enjoyment, and Avith less 
•field for its indulgence, the close of the session would perhaps 
have found him qualified for a diploma in this difficult department. 

After leaving the University, the groundwork of his professional 
education laid, he determined to seek a knowledge of the practice in 
the law-office of William J. Robertson, Esq., then a distinguished 
member of the bar of the neighboring town of Charlottesville, and 
afterwards a member of the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. 
Here he continued some time, and here perhaps learned the high 
and honorable bearing which in after-life always characterized his 
professional intercourse with his brethren of the bar. On leaving 
the office of Mr. Robertson he emigrated to the State of Tennessee, 
and in connection with an intimate friend and college associate, 
Joseph Urquhart, Esq., entered upon the active practice of his 
profession in the city of Memphis, and in the short space of less 
than twelve months lie won his way to a practice which more than 
repaid his brightest anticipations. Learning, however, of the fail- 
ing health of his parents, he returned to Virginia in the fall of 
1859; and after a short period of recreation among his friends, 
resumed the practice of his profession in* his native county. It 
was not long, however, that he was destined to engage in the quiet 
, pursuits of civil life. Possessed of an ardent patriotism and a keen 
appreciation of the rights of his State and section, as he dwelt upon 
the many grievances they had suffered, his heart glowed with a 
warm desire to aid in the attempt to redress them. He no longer 
felt at liberty to pursue the quiet, unexciting duties of business life. 
His country liad been wronged, and now 

" The field of combat was the sphere of men." 



742 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[April, 



Accordingly, early after the commencement of the war, he 
entered the service of the South, His first military experience 
was in the scouting service, a branch of duty for which his great 
daring eminently fitted him, and in which he was of signal benefit 
to the cause, and won the admiration and applause of all the gen- 
eral officers for whom he acted. He did not long continue in this 
service, but returned home and made up, in connection with Wil- 
liam H. Crank, Esq., of Charlottesville, an artillery company, 
from his own county and the county of Albemarle. Of this 
company he was elected 1st Lieutenant. It was subsequently 
transferred to cavalry, and joined the battalion of Major H. C. 
Pate, which, with the addition of several other companies, consti-' 
tuted the 5th Virginia Cavalry. In this regiment Captain Boston 
commanded Company I He was acting in this capacity when 
the battles of Chancellorsville and Spottsylvania Court House 
were fought. In both of these Captain Boston acted with dis- 
tinguished gallantry; in the latter, engaging by the side of young 
Modena, of Richmond, in a hand-to-hand conflict with the enemy 
at great odds. At the cavalry fight at Aldie, on the 17th of 
June, 1863, one of the fiercest of the war, then commanding a 
squadron of sharpshooters, he again acted with most conspicuous 
bravery. Ordered by Colonel Rosser to the front, with Captain 
White and Lieutenants F. C. Boston, Ragsdale, and Hoard, and 
forty-five men, without protection save by a small stack of straw, 
he held in check for a length of time two full regiments of the 
enemy. In this engagement Lieutenant Ragsdale was killed, two 
others of the officers severely wounded, and several of the men 
slightly. The enemy lost in killed seventeen, in wounded about 
thirty. Captain Boston, with his brother, Lieutenant Boston, 
and most of the men, Avere surrounded and taken prisoners ; but 
it was not until Captain Boston had fired his last bullet and re- 
ceived one through his clothes that he surrendered. They were 
held as prisoners about nine months. Soon after the death of 
Colonel Pate at Yellow Tavern, May 11th, 1864, Captain Boston 
was promoted to the office of Colonel. It was understood that his 
promotion was intended as but a just testimonial to the gallantry 
which he had invariably displayed whenever occasion offered. 

By a mistake of the enemy's wagons for our own. Colonel 
Boston was again captured at Trevillian's Depot, in the county 
of Louisa, in the summer of 1864. This time, however, his 



1SG5.] 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMOPJAL. 743 



detention was but brief. He was placed in charge of a Federal 
Sergeant, and, while riding along in company with each other, 
conversing familiarly upon general topics, the Sergeant courteously 
proposed a smoke, to which he readily assented, but suggested 
" some of the old Virginia weed " which he had instead of that 
offered by the Sergeant. This proposition, seemingly made in 
jierfect good faith and without motive, had the effect of placing 
the latter entirely off his guard. They filled their pipes, and from 
the kind manner practised between the two soldiers as they rode 
along, one might well have supposed they were the best of friends. 
AVhat, however, was the chagrin of the Sergeant, as he placed his 
pistol aside for the purpose of enjoying what, at least between 
them, he had supposed was the calumet of peace, to witness his pris- 
oner dash with the freedom of an antelope across the field, and 
soou disappear from sight, leaving the luckless Sergeant to enjoy 
the " old Virginia weed " alone. Colonel Boston's regiment 
operated with the Army of Northern Virginia, steadily following 
its chano-ins; fortunes to the close. After the retirement of that 
army from before Richmond, early in the month of April 1865, 
when almost eveiy hope had perished. Colonel Boston still main- 
tained a cheerful demeanor, quietly and uumurmuringly submitting 
to trials that after that period broke many a less manly spirit; 
until, at the battle of High Bridge, on the 7th day of that month, 
while engaged in a bold reconnoissance of the enemy's position, 
he was shot and instantly killed. His comrades buried him in a 
shallow grave upon the field, a salute was ordered to be fired above 
him, and they mournfully turned away from all that was mortal 
of Reuben B. Boston. 

In stature Colonel Boston was well-proportioned and full six 
feet in height, very erect in carriage, and one of the most com- 
manding officers in appearance in the whole army. On the field 
he was the very type of Virginia chivalry, and by the camp-fire 
Jiis genial nature and kind manner towards officers and men ren- 
dered him the cynosure of every circle which he entered. 

A few days after the surrender of the army at Appomattox 
Court House, under the direction of his relatives, his remains 
were disinterred. At the old homestead at Red Hill, amid the 
scenes of his youthful sports, he now rests in a repose from which 
not reveille nor roll-call can e'er summon him again to the service 
of the land he loved so well. 



744 THE UNIVEPuSlTY MEMORIAL. ^^prij^ 



BRECKINEIDGE BROTHERS. 

Peachy G. Breckinridge. Acting Captain, Conapany B, and 
JA3IES Breckinridge, Captain, Company C, 2d Virginia Cavalry. 

"Brothers !^^ — what a wealth of power in that word; power 
for joy, power for sorrow ; power to thrill the heart Avith delight, 
and power to wring it with anguish ! And how often lias it forced 
its way into these pages, eloquent with the griefs of the living and 
with the glory of the dead ! Conrad brothers, Radford brothers, 
Towles brothers, Massie brothers, Davidson brothers, AVrenn 
brothers, Wyatt brothers, Chalmers brothers, Meem brothers : all 
these have found a place in this memorial record. And now we 
close the record by adding anotlier name to this roll of martyr 
brothers — a name which was historic before it was written with 
the point of the sword, and in characters of blood, upon the annals 
of an ill-starred people. 

Peachy Gilmer Breckinridge, son of Carey and Emma 
Gilmer Breckinridge, of Botetourt county, Virginia, was born on 
the 15th of September 1835. His character was a combination 
of strong qualities, prominent among which was his courage, botli 
moral and physical. It has, indeed, been said of him that he 
never experienced the sensation of fear ; but if he did he seemed 
not to lose the power of self-possession, even in his youth and 
under the most critical circumstances. While a boy he M'as one 
day skating with his school mates, when the ice broke and he 
went down beyond his depth. He rose to the surface, but with 
each effort to extricate himself the ice gave way. One of his com- 
panions who was very fond of him was hastening to his assistance, 
when GiLJrER shouted to him to go back or he would certainly 
be drowned. Reaching at length a point where the ice was firmer, 
he climbed out without help. 

His affection for his mother and respect for her wishes Avas 
another marked characteristic. "When about eighteen, the ao-e at 
which so many young men think it an evidence of their manhood 
to disregard the injunctions of their parents, Gilmer was visiting 
some friends who played cards for amusement; they wished him 
to join them, but he declined, saying he did not know how. They 
urged him to learn, and when he refused, demanded his reason. 
He simply replied : " My mother does not wish me to play." 



18G5.] 



THE ITJSIVEIliJlTY MEMORIAL. ' 745 



In 1853 he entered the Virginia Military Institute, and there 
received the education which eminently fitted him for the service 
his country afterwards demanded at his hands. His first year at 
the Institute was marked by a determination to resist the tyranny 
always exercised by the older 'cadets over the " plebs." Few young 
men have ever succeeded in their efforts to withstand the com- 
binations of the advanced classes ; indeed, the submission of the 
i:>lehcians is a custom so time-honored that very few of them think 
of attempting to violate it. If it is a custom "more honored in 
the breach tlian in the observance," Gil:mer Breckinridge 2)aid 
it tlie highest respect : he never surrendered to his seniors. 

He next pursued a course at William and Mary College; and 
afterwards (in 1857) he entered the University of Virginia as a 
law student. The following summer he joined the Pacific Hail- 
road Exploring Expedition, under Lieutenant Beale, of the United 
States Army. One of his adventures during this trip came near 
costing him his life. The party were halting for several days on 
the Canadian River, when one morning he took his gun and Avent 
out in search of game. In the excitement of hunting he lost his 
bearings, and was not able to return to the camp. For three 
days he wandered about, bewildered and without food, in a country 
filled with hostile Indians and wild beasts. On the morning of 
the third day he struck the trail, and after walking a few miles 
saw an Indian running towards him, yelling loudly ; others soon 
appeared, rapidly approaching and making the air ring with their 
shouts from every direction ; but he was pleasantly relieved at 
finding they were hunters sent out in search of him. 

On his return from California he commenced the practice of 
law, and was rising rapidly in his profession when the war broke 
out. In 1860 he was married to Miss Julia AnJ«liony. 

When the State Convention was called to consider the question 
of secession, he was nominated by the FIncastle paper as a candi- 
date for that body. He was strongly opposed to the disruption of 
the Government, and upon his acceptance of the nomination he 
issued an address to the people of Botetourt and Craig counties, 
stating clearly his political views. The following extracts from 
that address serve to show at once his devotion to the Union, his 
strong sarcastic method of argumentation, and his stern moral 
courage for which he was conspicuous, illustrated in this case by 
his bold opposition to the popular feeling: — 



'46 THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



[April, 



"... But admitting that slavery is in danger, and that dis- 
union is the only remedy, let us see whether slavery is worth the 
Union. We must treat slaves as we would other property, and 
give it its value in dollars and cents. We must lay aside that ro- 
mantic attachment for this peculiar property which would lead us 
to sacrifice everything else, and leave us in the possession of it 
without being able to enjoy it. If we separate from the North, it 
will be on account of the bad feeling existing between us; so 
that there will be no hope of our being on terras of friendship 
hereafter. This, then, would compel us to keep a standing army on 
our northern frontier. Now, if the Legislature of Virginia al- 
lowed the hanging, not the trial or board, of seven men who had 
been caught by the United States marines, to cost the State $220,- 
000, how much would it cost to keep up an array of 20,000 men? 
But as we may, after the next general election, be blessed with a 
Legislature which will have no ambition to hang Abolitionists with 
military honors, I may state that it is calculated that to support 
20,000 men costs $6,000,000 a year. Now, would the slaves of 
Virginia be worth that much more out of the Union than they 
would be i/i it? , . , 

" We are advised to secede, but no one has said what we are to 
do afterwards. We would have to establish a new Government; 
but would it be a confederacy, a consolidated republic or mon- 
archy? The party in whose hands the Union is dropping to 
pieces, is the party which will have to make the new Gov^ernraent. 
Now, is it likely that men who were unable to manage a Govern- 
ment already made — and said to be the best in tlie world — could 
make a better? It is easier to pull down a Government than it is 
to put up a better. . . . 

" While I intend to battle for the Union so long as we continue 
in it, when Virginia decides to withdraw from it, and calls for 
volunteers to defend her from invasion, I do not expect to be found 
far behind those who are now crying out so boldly for blood, un- 
less it be in retreat. He who raises his hand against the Consti- 
tution of the United States, which he is sworn to defend, will not 
be a reliable man even in a slave confederacy. Why is this dis- 
union movement made? Why is slavery in danger? Dema- 
gogues, North and South, have fired the hearts of brother against 
brother. We forget that ' a house divided against itself must fall,' 
We forget that in destroying this Union we but invite the hostility 



istjo.i THE UNIVERSITY MEMOEIxVL. 747 

of foreign foes. Has every spark of patriotism died out in the 
souls of the people? If exiled in a foreign land, would the heart 
turn back to Virginia, or South Carolina, or New York, or to any 
one State as the cherished home of its pride ? No ; we would re- 
member only that we were Americans. We would pine for the 
land whose goddess sits triumphant on her throne — her fjot upon 
the neck of tyrants — her ensign welcoming beneath its shelter the 
oppressed of distant nations. Away with your Palmetto flags! 
Let the banner under which Washington fought wave over every 
blow that I strike in battle; and if I die the death of a soldier, let 
ine be wrapped in the 'Star Spangled Banner.' " . . . 

Gilmer Breckinridge was not elected to the Convention ; 
but when Virginia seceded and called for troops to defend her 
borders, true to the words that he had uttered, he was among the 
first to answer her summons. He at once raised and equipped a 
company of infantry and led it to the front. When the 28th 
Virginia Regiment was organized, his command became a part 
of it. 

The military career of Captain Breckinridge is so connected 
with that of his younger brother, James, that we must now glance 
at the early life of the latter. He was born September 1st, 1837, 
and passed his early youth without incident worthy of record. The 
features of his mind were softer than those of his brother's. Plis 
childhood's delight was to read about battles. Napoleon being his 
model of a hero ; and when he advanced in years he was devoted 
to horsemanship and athletic sports. He was first educated, like 
his brother, at the Virginia Military Institute; and then, during 
the session of 1859-60, he pursued the study of law at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia. Thus he was just preparing to enter upon 
the ])ractice of his profession when our national disturbances in- 
tervened. When his brother Gilmer set out for the field at the 
liead of an infantry company, he, influenced perhaps by his fond- 
ness for horses, enlisted in a company of cavalry, which was, upon 
the organization of regiments, incorporated with the 2d Virginia 
Cavalry. He was appointed Orderly Sergeant of the company, 
and afterwards rose to be Lieutenant. In this command he par- 
ticipated in the cavalry service of the first year of the war — 
arduous and exciting and dangerous, but after all, only a prelude 
to the exacting duties of succeeding years. 

In March 1862, he was married to Miss Fanny Buvwell, of 
Liberty — " a lovely girl, to whom he was devotedly attached." 



748 THE UNIVEESITY MEMORIAL. 



[April, 



At the reorganization of the army he was elected Captain of 
Company C, of the 2d Cavahy ; and "in this capacity he con- 
tinued to serve throughout the war with a fidelity and patriotism 
which could not be surpassed." 

The occasion which gave command to one brother deprived the 
other of it. In the 28th Infantry Gilmer Breckinridge was 
not re-elected; but, like Jubal Early, he went into tlie service not 
as a Secessionist, but as a Union man, fighting for the riglits of his 
old mother, Virginia. Accordingly, unmoved by this act of in- 
justice, which stung to the quick so many of our best officers, he 
joined the State Line under General Floyd, recruited a company 
for it, and was afterwards promoted to a Majority. When at 
length the State Line was disbanded, he did not hesitate concern- 
ing his duty. In May 1863, stepping down into the ranks, he 
enlisted in his brother's company of the 2d Cavalry. In this 
capacity, and as Color-Sergeant, he served — and by his faithful 
service honored his position — until the 24th of May, 1864, when 
he was assigned to the command of Company B, of tiie same regi- 
ment. On that day occurred the attack at Kennon's Landing, and 
there he yielded up his life. Some account of that unfortunate 
assault was given in the memoir of James G. Carr. The follow- 
ing statement of an officer engaged in it may also be added : — 

"We dismounted, made the assault, and were repulsed. Major 
Breckinridge was Avounded in the arm. We then changed our 
position and charged again through some obstructions of fallen 
trees and sharpened limbs. Major Breckinridge pushed on, 
working his way through the obstructions under a very heavy fire, 
and got within about fifty feet of the parapet, with only a few men 
around him, when he was seen to fall." 

It was impossible to bring him from the field, and so he sleeps 
in an unknown grave. His regimental commander, Colonel 
Thomas T. Munford, thus spoke of him in a letter to his 
parents : — 

" Your noble son had won the admiration of all the officers 
and men of my regiment. Throwing aside pride at loss of rank, 
he came forward as a private to defend his country. His gallant 
bearing as the Color-Sergeant, his uniform buoyant spirits under 
all circumstances, frequently volunteering when not called upon 
to go into a fight, had caused me to mention him in my reports, 
and he had been recommended for promotion and assigned to the 



1SG5.J 



THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 749 



command of Company B, as all of the officers of that company 
wore absent, wounded. It was at the head of his company he 
• fell, striking for all that was dear to him. Virginia has made 
heavy sacrifices, but no nobler patriot has fallen than your noble 
son.'' 

Of James Breckinridge's subsequent military career there 
is not space in this volume to go into the details. And porha})S 
it is just as well; for the heroism of the Confederate cavalry often 
borders on the marvellous, and many of their deeds would be 
received with "doubtful credence" by those who have not par- 
ticipated in this service. It is enough to say for Captain Breck- 
IXRIDGE that he was worthy of his company, and of the regiment 
to which it belonged. 

In August 1862, his command remained for a time near Gor- 
donsville, and his wife spent a few days with him at the house of 
his uncle, Dr. Gilmer. Immediately upon her return home she 
was stricken down with typhoid fever, and died while he was 
engaged Avith Pope's army, and unable even to hear of her illness. 
It was to him a crushing blow, but through God's mercy it led 
him to the Saviour; for so He killeth, and so He maketh alive. 
And so after a time the young soldier was able to regard as his 
home the heaven to which he believed his Christian wife had 
been translated. From that time he had little interest in life, 
except to serve his country, which he did fearlessly and faithfully. 

Escaping all the perils of war until just before the surrender of 
the Army of Northern Virginia, he was at last missing from his 
company. Xo friendly eye witnessed his death ; but he had been 
heard to say he would never surrender, and when last seen on the 
retreat he was surrounded by the enemy and fighting with des- 
peration. His fate is veiled by the clouds that hung in dark 
column over the way from Petersburg to Appomattox Court House. 
He was not i)resent to take part in the sad pageantry of the 12th 
of April ; and he came never back to his home in Botetourt, 
though wistful, longing eyes watched for him till every hope was 
lost. 

The Conrad brothers sleep together, as they fell, in one grave 
and under their father's eye. Even this is something to the be- 
reaved. Significant of the ever-increasing heart-burdens of the 
Southern people; typical, some will perhajis think, of the mystery 
which still shrouds this Southern land, is the fate of the Breck- 



'50 THE UNIVEESITY MEMOEIAL. 



[Api-j 



INRIDGE Brothers. They yielded up their lives on different 
and distant fields, and found their resting-place — none can tv^ll 
when or how. 

But, like the Conrads, they were one in faith. Gilmer had 
long been a devoted Christian and a consistent member of the 
Episcopal Church ; and we have seen how James learned at 
length to kiss the hand that afflicted him. And so they too 
triumphed in death, and, springing heavenward, left their names 
to their countrymen, their graves to fheir God. 



END OF VOLUME V. 



APPENDIX. 



The following names, with fragmentary notices, are added with 
a view to make the catalogue of the University dead as complete 
as may be. Some of them have been mentioned in the memoirs 
of their relatives; of others it has been found impossible to obtain 
information, in consequence of the death or removal of their 
friends; and for the rest, the author need only say that the failure 
to secure extended notices of them is due to no lack of diligent 
effort on his part. 

EGBERT J. JONES, 

OF ATHENS, ALABAMA ; 

Student of Law, session 1839-40 ; 

Colonel of the 4tb Alabama Infantry ; 

Killed at Manassas, July 21st, 1861. 



THOMAS J. SCOTT, 

OP MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA; 

Born July 26th, 1836 ; 

Student in 1857-58, 1858-59 ; 

Private, 3d Alabama Infantry; 

Killed at "Williamsburg, Virginia, May 5th, 1863. 



ROBERT BRECKINRIDGE McKIM, 

OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND ; 

Born December 23d, 1843 ; 

Student in 1860-61 ; 

Private in the Rockbridge Artillery ; 

Killed at Winchester, Virginia, May 25th, 1863. 



A. JAY ARNOLD, 

OP ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA; 

Born August 20th, 1838; 

Student in 1858-59, 1859-60; 

1st Lieutenant, comraandiug Company I, 5th Virginia Infantry, 

Killed at Port Republic, June 9th, 1803. 

751 



J 



'52 APPENDIX. 

WILLIAM G. FIELD, 

OP CULPEPER COUNTY, VIRGINIA: 

Born June, 1838 ; 

Student in 1857-58, 1858-59, 1859-60, 18G0-61 ; 

Lieutenant en General Jones's Statf ; 

Killed at Malvern Hill, July 1st, 1862. 



GEORGE L. GORDON, 

OP ALBEMARLE COUNTY, VIKGINIA,* 

Born January 17lh, 1829 ; 

Student in 1848-49, 1849-50; 

Killed at ]\ralvern Hill, July 1st, 1862. 



JOSEPH PRENTIS, 

OF THE t'NIVERSITY OK VIRGINIA; 

Born January 15th, 1845 ; 

Student in 1861-02 ; 

Killed at Malvern Hill, July 1st, 1862. 



GEORGE NOLE LEWIS, 

OF MONTEREY, ALABAMA ; 

Born November 1st, 1837; 

Student in 1854-55, 1855-56, 1856-57, 1857-58; 

Killed at Sliarpsburg, September 17tli, 1862. 



JOHN T. THORNTON, B. L., 

OP CUMBERLAND, VIRGINIA; 

Graduated Bachelor of Law, session 1843-44 ; 
Colonel, — Virginia Cavalry ; 
Killed at Sharpsburg, September 17th, 1862. 



HARRISON TILLINGHAST, 

OF MARIANNA, FLORIDA ; 

Student in 1859-60; 
Killed at Sharpsburg, September 17th, 1862. 



WILLIAM MORRIS, 

OP LOUISA COUNTY, VIRGINIA; 

Born April 1st, 1837 ; 

Student in 1854-55, 1855-56, 1856-57 ; 

Wounded at Coal Harbor, June 27th ; died October 17th, 1862. 



WASHINGTON B. BUTLER, 

OF FLORIDA ; 

Born February 26th, 1840, in Barnstable District, South Carolina ; 

Student in 1850-57, 1857-58, 1858-59, 1859-60 ; 

Adjutant, 2d Florida Infantry ; 

Killed at Chancellorsville, May 2d, 1863. 



APPENDIX. 753 

CORNELIUS A. BUTLER, 

OF FLORIDA ; 

Born iu 1837, in Barnwell District, South Carolina ; 
Student in 1856-57, 1857-58, 1858-59 ; 

Captain, 3d Florida Infantry ; 
Killed at Seven Pines, June Ist, 18G3. 



JOHN SUMMERFIELD JENKINS, 

OP POHTSMOUTH, VIRGINIA ; 

Born October 29tb, 1833 ; 

Student in 1850-57, 1857-58 ; 

Adjutant, 14th Vh-ginia Infantry; 

Killed at Gettysburg, July 3d, 1863. 



JOHN BANKHEAD MAGRUDER, M. A., 

OP ALBEJIARLE COUNTY, VIRGINIA ; 

Graduated Master of Arts, session 1859-60 ; 

Colonel, 57th Virginia Infantry ; 

Killed at Gettysburg, July 3d, 1863. 



ROBERT H. POORE, 

OF FLUVANNA COUNTT, VIRGINIA; 

Student in 1843-43 ; 

Major, 14th Virginia Infantry ; 

Killed at Gettysburg, July 3d, 1863. 



THOMAS HUNT BISCOE, 

or NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA; 

Born November, 1840 ; 

Student iu 1859-60, 1860-61 ; 

Major, 7th Louisiana Infantry; 

Killed at Spottsylvauia Court House, May 10th, 1864. 



WILLIAM ALEXANDER ROSS, 

OP CULPEPER COUNTY, VIRGINIA, 

Born November 37th, 1843 ; 

Student in 1860-61 ; 

Lieutenant, Company — , 53d Virginia Infantry ; 

Mortally wound( d, May 30th, 1864. 



CHARLES M. RIVES, 

OP ALBEMARLE COUNTY, VIRGINIA; 

Born September 18th, 1841 ; 

Student in 1857-58, 1858-59, 1859-60, 18G0-C1 ; 

Lieutenant, Albemarle Artillery ; 

Killed, June 3d, 1864. 

48 



754 APPENDIX. 

FRANCIS T. JONES, 

OF GEOEGIA, 

Adjutant, Cavahy, Hampton's Brigade, 

Wounded at Trevillian's, and 
Died June 20th, 1864. 



Dk. henry C. CHALMERS, * 

OF VIRGINIA ; '■ 

Born at " Springfield," Halifax county, July 20tb, 1837 ; . 

Student in 1854-55, lSo5-5G ; 
Surgeon, Confederate States Army; 
Died, February 7tli, 18G5. 



ALBERT DAVIDSON, 

OF LEXINGTON, YIKGINIA ; 

Son of James D. Davidson, Esq. ; 

Born December 25th, 1841 ; 

Student iu 18G0-G1. 

1st Lieutenant, Adjutant-General's Department ; 

Mortally wounded, April 9th, 18G5; died, May Gth, 1865. 

[Mentioned in the Memoir of Captain Greenlee Davidson.] 

WILLIAM HOPE PEEK, M. D., 

OP HAMPTON, VIRGINIA ; 

Born February 18th, 1838 ; 

Graduated Doctor of Medicine, session 1859-60 ; 

Surgeon, Confederate States Army ; 

Died in the latter part of the war. 



FREDERICK DAVIDSON, 

OF LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA ; 

Son of James D. Davidson, Esq. ; 

Sergeant, Co. H, 4th Virginia Infantry, 

Born March 18th, 1836 ; 

Killed at First Manassas, July 21st, 1861. 

[Mentioned in the Mernoi?' of Captain Greenleb Davidson.] 



THOMAS H. HOBBS, B. L., 

OF ALABAMA ; 

Graduated Bachelor of Law, session 1848-49 ; 
Colonel, — th Alabama Infantry. 



Colonel Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier county, Virginia. 

Captain William D. Farley, of Laurensville, South Car- 
olina. 



APPENDIX. 755 

Adjutant William B. Hamlin, of Petersburg, Virginia. 

Captain Ealph Elliott, of Beaufort, South Carolina. 

Geoege Gordon, of Fredericksburg, Virginia. 

Robert Hall Green, of Fauquier county, Virginia. 

Kennedy Grogan, of Baltimore, Maryland. 

James W. Lindsay, of Berry's Ferry, Virginia. 

Reuben Lindsay, of Albemarle county, Virginia. 

Bernard M. Taylor, of Caroline county, Virginia. 

John D. Watson, of Charlottesville, Virginia. 

A. M. McGcHEE, of Louisa county, Virginia. 

William B. Thompson, of Princess Anne county, Virginia. 

James Wheatley, of Culpeper county, Virginia. 

Robert T. Love, of Fairfax Court House, Virginia. 

L. B. Abercrombie, of Waverly, Texas. 

William J. Van DeGraff, of Gainesville, Alabama. 

Franklin Voss, of Baltimore, Maryland. 

James T. Walker, of Richmond, Texas. 

Richard B. Shearer, of Appomattox county, Virginia. 

Joseph K. Irving, of San Francisco, California. 

William N. AVard, of Richmond county, Virginia. 

Chapman, of Monroe county, Virginia. 



END OF THE UNIVERSITY MEMORIAL. 



FO'El^ 



EEAD BEFOKE THE SOCIETY OF ALUMNI, OF THB UNIVERSITY OF VIliGTOIik, AX 
THEIR ANNUAL MEETING, JULY 1st, ISBy, 



JOHN R. THOMPSON 



I. 



Here, at the ■well-remembered gates 

Tlirougli which we entered Learning's fane, 
Led, brothers, by the kindly fates, 

In joy we meet again; 
And all the troubled Past rolls by 
Like storm-clouds from the summer sky. 
Till lo ! Youth's sudden re-appearing grace, 
A golden sunlight, bathes and beautifies the place. 



II. 



To-day, our Mother greets her sous, 
With tender meaning iu her eyes, 
The lofty and the lowly ones, 
Tlie wayward and the wise; 
Alike, who, to enrich her fame, 
Come laurelled with an honored name, 
For virtue, knowledge, proud achievement known, 
And those who haply yet can offer love alone. 

757 



758 POEM READ BEFOEE THE SOCIETY OF ALUMKI, 

And this in wealth I freely bring, 

As mindful of this careless rhyme, 
When only high imagining 

Befits the thoughtful time, 
Wlien memories round us thickly throng 
Had moved tlie mightiest lords of song 
To epic majesty or lyric rage, 
Such as still lives and burns on the Miitouic page. 



IV. 



But well I know that love sincere 

Our Mother will not cast aside. 

Nor yet with solemn brows severe 

Our little failings chide ; 
To-day, no crabbed tasks she sets 
Of cosines or of sulphurets: 
The Sibyl's awful tome she shuts awhile, 
And bids us all once more be happy in her smile. 



Since last these friendly walks I trod, 

My rambling feet have chanced to stray 
AYhere rise o'er England's verdant sod 

The "antique towers" of Gray; 
And where all softly Isis glides 
To mirror in her tranquil tides 
The stately domes, the immemorial trees. 
That give a nameless charm to Oxford's lettered ease. 



VI. 

But Eton lacked the magic spell. 

With Oriel's ivy-clambered walls, 
That works its wondrous miracle 

In these familiar halls; 
That leads our footsteps swiftly back, 
In fancy, o'er life's devious track. 
Till on, by paths with plenteous roses strewn, 
In glad surprise again we reach our twentieth June. 



OF THE U^^IVEESITY'. QF.VIEGmiA. 759 



YII. 



O Alma Mater! brighter far 

To us thy whitewashed brick arcades, 
Than Europe's Gothic miusters are, 

Or chissic colouuades : 
More dear these liills of oak and pine 
Than all the purple Apenniue, 
Since here from boy to man we grew in turn, 
And lessons daily caught we never can unlearn. 



VIII. 

Here Nature year by j'ear revealed 

The truths that Science would impress, 
As Spring threw over copse and field 

Her newly woven dress; 
And Autumn, walking in her pride 
The maple belled mountain-side, 
Flung out her scarlet banners to the day, 
Till the whole Blue Hidge owned her coming and her sway. 



IX. 

The Present was a rhythmic ode 

That beat to pulses of the heart, 
And music from the future flowed 

Diviner than Mozart: 
That music swells for us no more. 
That strain is hushed on sea and shore; 
But th,)se who come our places here to fill, 
Can catch its joyous burst, its glorious strophe still. 



X. 

How quick from premise unto proof 

Our yet undiujmed perceptions rani 
How fair we built from base to roof 

Our chUcanx en Esparjne! 
Then life was but a reeling sense 
Of something like omnipotence: 
The lips we loved, the sweetest carlhly flowers. 
Bloomed, smiled for us, and all the giddy world was ours! 



760 POEM READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF ALUMNI, 



XI. 



De Juventute, threadbare theme 

lu every age of pen aud touguc, — 
How gladly we dream o'er the dream 

We dreamt when we were young ! 
Nor futile yet this backward view, 
Could we our early faith renew, 
And with the joy aud freshness of our youth, 
Revive in all its strength our boyish trust in Truth. 



XII. 



For soon amid the worldly din 

Of man's incessant strife for gold — 
What time our hair grew gray or thin — 

That early faith grew cold : 
Illusions that we dearest held 
Were sadly, one by one, dispelled : 
The pageant faded, and tliat boyish trust, 
Ere life's meridian liour, lay trodden in the dust. 



XIII. 

One self-same fortune all have known 

Of human life's unvaried round, 
Who wandered to earth's farthest zone 

Or tilled their native ground: 
On far-off oceans rudely tost. 
Or deep in roaring cities lost. 
All, all have grieved, whatever else was gained, 
Some precious chance ill-used, some guerdon unattained. 



XIV. 

In vain, as boys or men, we seek 

The mind's ideal; still it flies 
Our eager grasj:), from peak to peak, 

Beyond the distant skies ; 
Or from some lofty pathless cliff 
Forever mocks us with an IJ\ 
Until we weary of the idle quest. 
And, baffied oftentimes, sit down and long for rest. 



OF THE UNIVEKSITY OF VIEGINIA. 761 

XV. 

And thus, iu ceaseless care and strife, 

Man walks the plain or toils the steep, 
And then at last " our Utile life 

Is rounded with a sleep " : 
Thrice happy they who leave behind 
Some deaUiless work of heart or niiud, 
Some gem discovered m the mines of Thought, 
To tell that they have lived, and have not lived for nought. 



XVI. 

"But why not," some one seems to say, 

" O Poet ! with your verse infuse 
The humor of a livelier lay, 
Or woo a merrier Muse? 
AVhy turn in this dejected mood 
From platitude to platitude, 
Content on trite moralities to dwell. 
So often drily taught and only learned too well? 



XVII. 

" Need poet by what themes be told 
The passing hour is best beguiled? 
The Graces never yet grew old, 
And Love remains a child ; * 
And woman's neck is still as white 
As Helen's, and her eyes as bright: 
And 'ueath her smile the Future's shadowy scope 
In sudden glow assumes the radiant hues of Hope." 



The timely hint I fain would heed, 

That sadness is not Wisdom's plan. 
And scatter from the sportive reed 

The jocund notes of Pan ; 
And yet I do but strive in vain 
Some mirth to mingle with my strain: 
The lighter fancies bring not their relief, 
The pensive humor holds and deepens into grief. 

* Les Amours eout tonjonrs eufans, 
Et les Graces sout de tout age. 



762 POEM READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF ALUMKI, 

XIX. 

For, brothers, while your ranks I view, 

Another throng, methiuks, I see. 
And road the Psalmist's line anew 

The Dead alone are free ! ' 
Some who departed ere the flame 
Of conquest and of ruin came, 
And some who passed through battle's fiercest fire 
Beyond all earthly wrong, and struggle, and desire. 



XX. 



And death hath to their presence lent 

A grace the living cannot reach. 
Their silence is more elociuent 

Than our imperfect speech — 
The calm of an eternal rest 
Is in each countenance exprest ; 
I mark the halo round each shining head, 
And feel we are less great, less noble than the Dead. 



XXI. 

Their praise demands a loftier verse: 

Ah ! what avails this feeble line 
Thy merit, TnoiiNTox ! to rehearse ; 

Or, gifted Coleman! thine? 
The orator whose deeds eclipse 
The memory of his fluent lips, — 
The gentle scholar and the faithful friend, 
Who Falkland's knighthood seemed with Arnold's lore to blend. 



XXII. 

While here our sorrowing ]\lother keeps 

Ilis loss as her peculiar pain, 
For yet another child she weeps 

Who came not back again — 
Whose brief career on earth would seem 
A tender but unfinished theme — 
Matjpin, translated to the silent shore, 
Robed with immortal youth, and fair forevermoer. 



OF THE UNIVEESITY OF VIEGINIA. 763 

XXIII. 

What helps it now that I should seek 

Of Newton's cherished worth to tell; 
Of Fairfax, peerless name ' to speak, 

Among the first who fell ; 
Of BiiowN to sing, whose diamond star 
Of death in battle shines afar; 
To call up LATA]s;f:'s benignant shade. 
Upon whose early grave some few poor wreaths I laid? 



XXIV. 

The fame how shall my rhyme declare 

Of him,, with every virtue sealed. 
Who glorious made the name I bear, 

On Shiloh's crimsoned field ; 
Of Terrell, Paxton, Rives, who died 
Upborne on triumph's transient tide; 
Of CuNKiNGHAM, bewailed with costliest tears, 
And Harrison, cut down in manhood's opening years? 



XXV. 

What pen, though dipped in morning skies, 

What sweetest song of living praise, 
The unavailing sacrifice 

Shall mark to coming days. 
Of gallant Pegram, loved, deplored, 
A saintly life, a stainless sword, — 
The young Marcellus of the falling State, 
A Virgil's lay alone might fitly celebroite. 



XXVI. 

Nor yet less dearly mourned arc they, 

Faitlifnl la council and in camp, 
Who perished in tlie slow decay 

Of life's expiring lamp: 
I think of Tucker's features lit 
With nmsic, tenderness, and wit; 
Of Heath's fine licad with Learning's laurel decked, 
And Randolpu's brow where sat ancestral Intellect. 



764 POEM KEAD BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF ALUMNI, 

XXVII. 

Rest, heroes, rest from toil and care, 
By mountain slope or ocean's tides, 
Or deep in that rich Valle}', -where 
Old StoncwaH's ghost still rides : 
Albeit no memorial stone 
]\Iay make j'our names and valor known, 
There fairest maidens scatter blooms around. 
And with perennial love your quiet graves arc crowned. 



XXVIII. 

Guard well, ye mountains, their repose; 
Cliaunt, ocean, chaunt tlieir requiem; . 
From you whate'er of greatness flows 

"Was imaged forth in thcni ; 
And all on earth that's fair and bright. 
Of dearer charm or larger light. 
Shall still keep fresh the memory of the brave, 
While Alleghany stands, or rolls th' Atlantic wave. 



xxrx. 

Their varied lives agree in one 

The sacred mandate to renew — 
What still your hands find to be done 

With all your might to do : 
They teach that not till we have striven 
With ail the strength that God has given, 
Can we relinquish the appointed task, 
And on our feeble work His blessing dare to ask. 



XXX. 

An exile from my place of birth, 

I bear, in antique urn euslirincd, 
No handful of my native earth 

To keep the spot in mind : 
All that thou wast, tliat now thou art, 
I shrine, Virginia ! in my heart ; 
Thy hills, thy plains, thy rushing streams I see 
Upon whatever soil my feet may chance to be. 



OF THE UNIVEESITY OF VIKGINIA. 765 

XXXT. 

Iler future what though clouds enfold ? — 

Brave hands the waste may renovate, 
And make her greater than of old, 
Aye, somethhig more than great 
In labor, not in listlcssness, 
Lies hid the secret of success; 
And now, as ever, empire's fruitful seeds, 
Bearing an hundredfold, are homely, toilsome deeds. 



XXXII. 

"Wise Nature reconstructs her realm 

In beauty from her primal springs: 
The blue-bird twitters in the elm. 
The corn still laughs and sings ; 
Heaven showers upon the thirsty plain 
The early and the latter rain. 
And Plenty waits with ever liberal hand 
Her unexhausted gifts to pour upon the laud. 



XXXIII. 

And, casting oS" unwise regrets. 

We yet may hope that time shall prove 
Kind hearts are more than bayonets, 

And force less strong than love: 
We hnoio that order shall appear 
When God has made His purpose clear; 
The darkest riddles shall be understood. 
And all the perfect world shall in His sight be good ! 



